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Gbe Scribner jengltsb Classics 



EDITED BY 

FREDERICK H. SYKES, Ph.D. 

TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

("THE EDINBURGH REVIEW," JULY, 1843) 

SAMUEL JOHNSON 

("THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, " EIGHTH ED.) 



The Scribner English Classics. 

Published under the General Editorship of Prof. Frederick H. 
Sykes, Ph.D., of Teachers College, Columbia University, and the 
special Editorship for each volume of a corps of experienced Univer- 
sity, College and Secondary School Teachers. 

NOW READY 

BURKE, Speech for Conciliation with the Colonies. 

Edited by Dean Thomas Arkel Clark, University of Illinois. 

WEBSTER, First Bunker Hill Oration. 



WASHINGTON, Farewell Address. 

Edited by Dean Thomas Arkel Clark, University of Illinois. 

CARLYLE, Essay on Burns. 

Edited by Prof. Archibald MacMechan, Dalhousie Univer- 
sity, Halifax. 

IN PRESS 

COLERIDGE, The Ancient Mariner, and Select Poems. 

Edited by Prof. Henry M. Belden, University of Missouri. 

MACAULAY, Life and Writings of Addison. ) _ 

„_ . , > One volume. 

Essay on Johnson. ) 

Edited by Prof. Cecil Lavell, Trinity College, Hartford. 

IN PREPARATION 

MILTON, Minor Poems. 

Edited by Dean Clarence J. Child, University of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar. 

Edited by Prof. F. H. Sykes, Ph.D., of Teachers College, 
Columbia University. 

SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth. 

Edited by Prof. F. H. Sykes, Ph.D., of Teachers College, Co- 
lumbia University. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Educational Department 

153-157 Fifth Avenue, New York 

CHICAGO BOSTON ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 



ftbe Scrttmer lEnQlish Classics 

THOMAS BABIMTON MACAULAY 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS 
OF ADDISON 

SAMUEL JOHNSON 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 



CECIL FAIRFIELD LAVELL, A.M 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, TRINITY COLLEGE, 

HARTFORD, DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF 

EDUCATION, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNEIt'S SONS 

1908 



UBHARYof OON«KF.SS| 
J wo Copies rtev>- 

AUG 22 WWtt 
2.\4<3*"1 



3 



Copyright, 1908, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons 




O 



SN 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



BIBLIOGRAPHY iv 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE \i 

INTRODUCTION : 

I. Thomas Babington Macaulay vii 

ii. Macaulay's Personality xiv 

in. Critical Estimates xvi 

iy. The Periodicals xviii 

v. The Study of Macaulay's " Addison" and 

"Johnson" xx 

Part I 

TEXT : "The Life and Writings of Addison" ... 3 

NOTES to " The Life and Writings of Addison " . . 91 

Part II 

TEXT: "Samuel Johnson" 3 

NOTES to " Samuel Johnson " 45 

INDEX 65 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



MACAULAY 
Text: 

Collected Works. Edited by Lady Trevelyan. 8 vols. Lon- 
don, 1866. 

Essays (including Addison), History of England, and Miscel- 
laneous Writings and Speeches (including Life of Johnson) 
in separate volumes, "Popular Edition." Longmans, 
Green, and Co. 

" History of England," in "Everyman's Library." London : 
John Dent and New York : E. P. Dutton. 

Life and Criticism : 

Trevelyan, Sir G. O., " Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay."' 
2 vols. Longmans, 1876. 

Morison, J. C, " Macaulay "(" English Men of Letters"). 
Macmillan. 

Stephen, Leslie, Article "Macaulay" in "Dictionary of Na- 
tional Biography.'/ 

Gladstone, W. E., "Macaulay" in "The Quarterly Review," 
vol. cxlii, and in "Gleanings of Past Years," II. 

McGregor, "Lord Macaulay." Cambridge University Press, 
1901. 

Jebb, Sir R. C, "Macaulay, a Lecture." Cambridge Uni- 
versity Press, 1900. 

ADDISON 

Text: 

Collected Works. Edited by Tickell. London, 1721. 
Works. In Bohn's " British Classics." 6 vols. 1856. 
" The Spectator," in "Everyman's Library." London : Dent 
and New York : Dutton. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY v 

" Eighteenth Century Essays.*' Edited by Austin Dobson. 
London : Kegan Paul, Trench, and Company, 1897. 

Life and Criticism : 

Aikin, Lucy, " Life of Addison." London, 1843. 

Johnson, Samuel, " Addison" in " Lives of the Poets." 
Edited by Arnold. Macmillan. 

Courthope, W. J., "Addison" ("English Men of Letters"). 
Macmillan. 

Stephen, Leslie, Article "Addison," in " Dictionary w Na- 
tional Biography." 

Thackeray, W. M., "English Humorists of the Eighteenth 
Century." London, 1858. 



JOHNSON 

Text: 

Complete Works. Edited by Walesby. 9 vols. Oxford, 1825. 

"Letters." Edited by G. Birkbeck Hill. 2 vols. Clarendon 
Press, 1897. 

" Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." Edited by G. B. Hill. 
Oxford, 1887. 

"Lives of the Poets" (selected). Edited by Matthew Ar- 
nold. Macmillan. 

Life and Criticism : 

Boswell, James, "Life of Johnson." Edited by G. B. Hill. 
6 vols. Oxford, 1887. 

Stephen, Leslie, "Johnson" ("English Men of Letters"). 
Macmillan. 

Hill, G. B., "Dr. Johnson, His Friends and His Critics." 
Oxford, 1878. 

Macaulay, "Essay on Boswell' s Life of Johnson" in "Edin- 
burgh Review," vol. liv, and in "Essays." 

Carlyle, "Boswell's Life of Johnson" in " Fraser's Maga- 
zine," 1832, and in "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays." 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley 
Temple, Leicestershire, October 25th, 1800; entered the 
University of Cambridge in 1S18; graduated in 1822; was 
elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge— i.e., one 
of the sixty masters of the college, with an income of 
$1,500 a year for seven years— in 1824; called to the bar 
in 1826; began his long connection with the "Edinburgh 
Review" in 1825 with the essay on Milton; entered the 
House of Commons in 1830 in time to take distinguished 
part in the struggle for parliamentary reform; became 
Secretary of the Board of Control for India in 1833; 
went to India in 1834 as legal adviser to the Supreme 
Council, remained there till 1838, and was the chief author 
of a new Indian Penal Code; published in 1848 the first 
two volumes of his "History of England from the Acces- 
sion of James IP'; Lord Rector of the University of 
Glasgow in 1849; issued remainder of the "History" in 
1855; was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay of 
Rothley in 1857; died at his residence in Kensington. 
December 28th, 1859; and was buried in Westminster 
Abbey. 



INTRODUCTION 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 

(1800- 1859) 

PERHAPS as long- as there has been a political history 
in this country," says Walter Bagehot, 1 "there have 
been certain men of a cool, moderate, resolute firmness, 
not gifted with high imagination, little prone to enthu- 
siastic sentiment, heedless of large theories and specula- 
tions, careless of dreamy scepticism, with a clear view of 
the next step, and a wise intention to take it, a strong- 
conviction that the elements of knowledge are true, and a 
steady belief that the present world can, and should, be 
quietly improved. These are the Whigs." Of this type 
was Thomas Babington Macaulay. And if we add to these 
qualities a healthy grip on life, a restless vitality, clear- 
ness of thought, an enthusiastic love of the world and of 
humankind as he saw them, and ability to express all these 
things in vivid, eloquent language, we may see in a 
measure why Macaulay was during his lifetime the most 
popular of English writers outside the field of fiction. 
Even now, fifty years after his death, so much of this 
popularity remains that we may safely class the "Essays" 
and the "History of England" among the permanent 
works of English literature. After the lapse of half a 
century little remains of mere fashion or accidental value. 
If people read Macaulay now it is because he gives them 
something that is worth while. What then, stated briefly, 
is this "something" that places him with the immortals? 

1 One of the keenest and sanest of modern English critics in the fields of 
Politics and Economics, — author of the best description that we possess of 
"The English Constitution " as it is. 



viii INTRODUCTION 

Perhaps it is not far from the truth to say that Ma- 
caulay is and will be read largely because of his clearness, 
his robust sense, and his radiant vitality. He is the 
sanest, clearest, most interesting of all English historians; 
and the same general qualities of sanity and clearness, the 
same attractive gift of seizing the striking, universally in- 
teresting features of his hero appear even in his literary 
essays — such as those contained in this little book. Now it 
will be noted that we say sane, not boldly imaginative or 
picturesque ; clear, not profound or philosophic ; interest- 
ing, not deeply sympathetic or gifted with insight into 
subtle motives. It was doubtless partly temperamental, 
his love for the tangible, his warm admiration for men 
who do things, his liking for a practical problem rather 
than 'for dreamy uncertainties and vague aspirations, his 
yearning for clear-cut lines and finite ideals. But this 
matter-of-fact tendency may have been partly due to the 
age in which he lived. For it was peculiarly a time, when 
according to his temperament it would be possible for a 
thoughtful mind to go to either of two extremes. The 
early nineteenth century was full of the impulse of the 
French Revolution and Rousseau's gospel of nature. 
Sensitive, high-strung, imaginative, hopeful natures 
caught the fever of democracy, nature worship and ro- 
manticism, and the result was seen in Wordsworth, 
Shelley, Byron, and Keats. But the time was equally one 
of severe practical problems, and a practical mind might 
well turn impatiently from the wild visions of the Revolu- 
tion to the immediate need for clear thinking and hard 
work. A descendant of Scotch Presbyterian ministers, 
son of a stern reformer, Macaulay was not of a sensitive, 
emotional temperament. Adam Smith's investigations into 
the laws that govern the production, exchange and in- 
crease of the wealth of nations were far more apt to inter- 
est him than the passionate dreams of Rousseau. The 
vigorous action, the great social changes, the industrial 
problems, the crying need for reforms, the storms and 
calms in the practical world of his time,— these are the 



INTRODUCTION ix 

things that we must keep in mind when w^ estimate the 
influence on Macaulay of his education and environment. 
Men of hard, clear good sense, men of the type of George 
Canning, Sir Robert Peel, and Macaulay were as truly the 
product of their age as were Shelley and Byron. 

Let us briefly summarize Macaulay's life and the forces 
that affected it. He was born in the last year of the 
eighteenth century, the year of Marengo, six years after 
the close of the Reign of Terror. When he was five years 
old was fought off Cape Trafalgar the battle that saved 
England from the imminent danger of invasion. Another 
year, and the two greatest men in English public life — 
Pitt and Fox— passed almost together from the scene of 
their triumphs and their rivalries, leaving their country to 
struggle on against the gigantic power that was rising 
with no sign of diminishing vitality across the Channel. 
The world was a stirring one, and it was of no small 
events and no small men that the boy would hear talk on 
all hands as his school-days passed and as his outlook on 
life grew broader. Even the literary products of those 
years were dynamic,— alive with the interest of human 
action and passion. In 1812 appeared the first two cantos 
of "Childe Harold"; in 1819, the first four cantos of 
"Don Juan." In 1814 "Waverley" was published. In 
1820 came Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound." The notes 
of exultant action, of romantic joy in love and brave deeds, 
of stormy passion, almost drowned such quieter, deeper, 
calmer music as that of Wordsworth. The men who were 
looking eagerly for the latest news of Napoleon, whose 
souls were filled with the exhilaration of war and patriot- 
ism or the passion of revolt, might find relief in Scott's 
romances or inspiration in the wild songs of Byron and 
Shelley. Few could find response in their hearts to the 
exquisite peace of the "Solitary Reaper" or the "Excur- 
sion." Finally, in Macaulay's fifteenth year, came news 
of the great battle of Waterloo, when the name of Well- 
ington was on the tongue of every man in England, and 
when the pride of his country's brilliant and hard-earned 



x INTRODUCTION 

victory would fill the boy's soul. Then at last the years 
of strife were over. 

By the time that Macaulay was ready to go to Cam- 
bridge England was feeling the hard times that succeeded 
the long war, and her best men were trying to decide 
which of her old laws were helpful and which were hin- 
drances in the face of the new problems of the 'age. 
Steam and the invention of new mechanical devices had 
wholly changed the conditions of the industrial world. 
The victory of democracy in Europe and America had in- 
troduced new ideas into politics. And the young, open- 
minded, quick-witted and clear-headed student had little 
difficulty in finding living problems of the utmost impor- 
tance to attack and try to wisely solve. He was an im- 
mense reader, a ready and eager debater, a fluent and 
vehement speaker, and his wonderful memory gave him 
an advantage in argument which he used constantly in the 
vigorous conflicts of tongue and wit characteristic of uni- 
versity life. In 1824 he left Cambridge, and two years 
later he was called to the bar. 

But although in due time he had to take the leading 
part in drawing up a Penal Code for India, he never gave 
much attention to the practice of law in England. For he 
had already begun to make a name for himself in the 
domain of letters, and little as the essays contributed in 
these younger days to "Knight's Quarterly Magazine" 
are read now, they show most unmistakably the unique 
characteristics of style which every one now associates 
with his name. Indeed, this "Macaulay Style" had ap- 
peared in definite form in a University prize essay on 
William III. Take this, for example : 

' ' Louis was not a great general. He was not a great legis- 
lator. But he was, in one sense of the words, a great king. 
He was a perfect master of all the mysteries of the science 
of royalty— of all the arts which at once extend power and 
conciliate popularity— which most advantageously display the 
merits, or most dexterously conceal the deficiencies, of 'a 
sovereign. He was surrounded by great men, by victorious 



INTRODUCTION xi 

commanders, by sagacious statesmen. Yet while he availed 
himself to the utmost of their services, he never incurred 
any danger from their rivalry. His was a talisman which 
extorted the obedience of the proudest and mightiest spirits. 
The haughty and turbulent warriors whose contests had 
agitated France during his minority yielded to the irresistible 
spell, and, like the gigantic slaves of the ring and lamp of 
Aladdin, labored to decorate and aggrandize a master whom 
they could have crushed." 1 

Compare this, with its rapid movement, its clear-cut 
antithesis, its crisp concreteness, its luminous and sug- 
gestive simile from the Arabian Nights, with such a pas- 
sage as the following from the essay on Milton, dealing 
with a totally different subject : 

' ' His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less 
in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would 
seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other 
words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are 
they pronounced, than the past is present and the distant 
near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and 
all the burial places of the memory give up their dead. 
Change the structure of the sentence; substitute one synonym 
for another,, and the whole effect is destroyed. The spell 
loses its power; and he who should then hope to conjure 
with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the 
Arabian tale, when he stood crying, ' Open Wheat, ' ' Open 
Barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound but 'Open 
Sesame. ' ' ' 

Here are the same characteristics, with only a slight 
loss of vivid concretehess resulting from the fact that Ma- 
caulay is discussing words instead of men. And this rapid, 
picturesque, clear-cut, almost staccato style— so brilliant, 
and yet so lacking in the softer tones — may be paralleled 
on page after page of the essays on Addison and Johnson. 
It is the product of an active, keen, practical and clear- 
seeing brain grown to maturity in a time of great deeds, 

iTrevelyan "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," I., 88-9. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

strong passions, and acute problems. It was fully formed 
when Maeaulay left the University, and it never lost the 
essential characteristics which brought its author such 
abundant fame. The fascination of both style and point 
of view then and always was the fascination of daylight. 
Their defect lay in the inability of a bright, healthy, 
common-sense, matter-of-fact, keen, and confident mind 
to see into the softer shades, into the dawns and twilights 
of life. 

In August, 1825, the essay on Milton appeared in the 
"Edinburgh Review," and the young author at once leaped 
into fame. From that time on article after article to the 
end of his life continued to appear in the famous peri- 
odical which is now so definitely associated with his name 
and genius, and his position in the world of letters was 
assured. In 1830 he was offered a seat in Parliament. 
He took part with a distinction equalled by few of his 
colleagues in the great series of debates on the Reform 
Bill, and when that bill became law in 1832 he might well 
feel a peculiar pride in his share of the great achievement 
which went so far towards removing the abuses of the old 
regime in England. Yet with all the busy life of a par- 
liamentary debater, a valued party leader, a conscientious 
and painstaking official, 1 a reader of inconceivable range, 
and a constant writer, he contrived to keep in touch with 
social life and with the movements of the world. He was 
a brilliant and easy talker, an open-eyed observer of cur- 
rent events, the possessor of a miraculous memory, 2 and 
with it all a genial companion, a firm friend, a loving son 
and brother, and the sunniest and kindest-hearted of men. 
Such a nature at such a time was not apt to develop 
either the virtues or the faults of a recluse. The eccen- 
tricity and the subtle penetration, the extravagance and 
the prophetic vision of Carlyle alike escaped him. He 

i As Commissioner of Bankruptcy, Secretary of the Board of Control for 
India, Member of the Supreme Council of India, and, in 1840, Secretary at 
War 

2 For instance— one of many that could be named— he could repeat half of 
' ' Paradise Lost ' ' by heart. 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

was a man of the world. And if we appreciate this we 
may easily see what characteristics would appeal to him 
in either writer or man of action. Uncertainty, the inter- 
weaving- and conflict of complex motives, vain rebellion 
against facts, any tendency to dream and philosophize 
over things that required direct, alert, practical treatment 
irritated him in a poet or an historian as in a soldier or a 
statesman. Yet he did not require the continuous strain 
of seriousness in either writer or man of action. No man 
knew better than Macaulay how to enjoy himself and 
throw care aside when the time came to do so. And in 
both classical writers and in such an English essayist as 
Addison he enjoyed the lightness of touch, the dainty 
mockery, the easy play of mind as much as he did the 
pure diction, the directness, the lack of vain mysticism, 
and the clearness of* thought. Dreaming for the enjoy- 
ment of it he could well appreciate. But in dreams or 
philosophy when they were in earnest he had little inter- 
est. Not that this was earned to an extreme. He loved 
much great poetry, and poetry involves imagination. But 
the poetry that he cared about was poetry whose merit 
lay primarily in music, in majestic diction, in daintiness 
of touch or stateliness of thought, not in mystic visions or 
in yearnings for the infinite. He admired Virgil, Dante, 
and Milton. He cared not at all for Wordsworth, and 
Browning would have been to him a mere cause for 
astonishment and contemptuous irritation. 

From the death of Milton to the appearance of Words- 
worth and Coleridge— that is to say, roughly, during the 
eighteenth century— English literature possessed in the 
main precisely the merits that appealed to Maeaulay's 
mind. Dryden, Pope, Swift, Addison, Steele, Gibbon, all 
had the qualities of absolute clearness, directness, classic 
diction, and a certain stately eloquence. King William 
III. was Macaulay's ideal statesman and man of action, 
and the men of the age of William III., or those of the 
succeeding generations who carried on the traditions of 
that age, had a peculiar charm for him. Among these 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

interpreters of the age of William III. and Queen Anne, 
Addison is the most lovable, the most cheerful, the writer 
of purest, most faultless style, and it is not hard to ac- 
count for Macaulay's almost personal love for him. 
Among the later writers of the same eighteenth century 
Samuel Johnson, utterly lacking the sunny, well-balanced 
nature of Addison, was yet the most powerful literary 
personality of his age,— a man who hated mere dreams as 
much as did Macaulay, a man of strong affections, of 
strong, clear brain, whose merits Macaulay could admire 
intensely and whose defects as writer and thinker he could 
easily pardon. In these essays on Addison and Johnson, 
then, w r e see Macaulay— at least in the matter of literary 
appreciation and criticism — at his best. To judge him by 
his dislike of Wordsworth would be unjust and merely 
negative, for it would emphasize nt>t what he was, but 
what he was not. But in these two studies the great essay- 
ist sets forth the character and work of two great and 
kindred spirits with that certainty of touch, that uncom- 
promising clearness— the luminous clearness of a Mediter- 
ranean landscape— that exhilarating life, that joyous 
vigor and sanity which we love and admire in him. These 
are his permanent gifts to English literature and to the 
world. Would that we could learn from them the cheeri- 
ness, the moral health, the goodness and kindness of soul 
of one of the most admirable and lovable figures in the 
annals of English literature ! 



II 

MACAULAY'S PERSONALITY 

"Macaulay's outward man was never better described 
than in two sentences of Praed's Introduction to Knight's 
"Quarterly Magazine." 'There came up a short, manly 
figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and 



INTRODUCTION xv 

one hand in his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty he 
had little to boast; but in faces where there is an expres- 
sion of great power, or of great good-humor, or both, you 
do not regret its absence.' This picture, in which every, 
touch is correct, tells all that there is to be told. He had a 
massive head, and features of a powerful and rugged 
cast; but so constantly lighted up by every joyful and 
ennobling emotion that it mattered little if, when ab- 
solutely quiescent, his face was rather homely than hand- 
some. While conversing at table, no one thought him 
otherwise than good-looking; but when he rose he was 
seen to be short and stout in figure. . . . He at all times 
sat and stood straight, full, and square; . . . He dressed 
badly, but not cheaply. His clothes, though ill put on, 
were good." 

"Whatever fault might be found with Macaulay's ges- 
tures as an orator, his appearance and bearing in con- 
versation were singularly effective. Sitting bolt upright, 
his hands resting on the arms of his chair or folded over 
the handle of his walking-stick ; knitting " his great eye- 
brows if the subject was one that had to be thought out as 
he went along, or brightening from the forehead down- 
wards when a burst of humor was coming; his massive 
features and honest glance suited well with the manly, 
sagacious sentiments which he set forth in his pleasant, 
sonorous voice, and in his racy and admirably intelligible 
language." 

"The main secret of Macaulay's success lay in this, that 
to extraordinary fluency and facility he united patient, 
minute, and persistent diligence. . . . He never allowed 
a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could 
make it. He thought little of recasting a chapter in order 
to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing what- 
ever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sense of one 
happy stroke or apt illustration. Whatever the worth of 
his labor, at any rate it was a labor of love." 

— From Trevelyan's u Life and Letters of 
Lord Macaulay." 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

III 

CRITICAL ESTIMATES 

"JIe is unequalled in our time in his mastery of the art of 
letting us know in a precise and unmistakable way exactly 
what it was that happened."— John Morley. 

"He has a constant tendency to glaring- colors, to strong 
effects, and will always be striking violent blows. He is 
not merely exuberant, but excessive. There is an over- 
whelming confidence about his tone; he expresses himself 
in trenchant phrases, which are like challenges to an op- 
ponent to stand up and deny* them. His propositions 
have no qualifications. Uninstructed readers like this as- 
surance, as they like a physician who has no doubt about 
their case. But a sense of distrust grows upon the more 
circumspect reader as he follows page after page of Ma- 
caulay's categorical affirmations about matters which our 
own experience of life teaches us to be of a contingent 
nature. We inevitably think of a saying attributed to 
Lord Melbourne, 'I wish I were as cock-sure of any one 
thing as Macaulay is of everything.' "—Mark Pattison. 

"Macaulay's great quality is that of being one of the 
best story-tellers that ever lived." 

"He is never vague, shadowy, and incomplete. The 
reader is never perplexed by ideas imperfectly grasped, 
by thoughts which the writer cannot fully express. On the 
other hand, his want of aspiration, of all effort to rise 
into the higher regions of thought, has lost him in the 
opinion of many readers. He is one of the most enter- 
taining, but also one of the least suggestive, of writers." 

"He never has anything to say on the deeper aspects 
and relations of life. . . . His learning is confined to 
book-lore : he is not well read in the human heart, and still 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

less in the human spirit. His unspirituality is complete; 
we never catch 'a glimpse of the far land' through all his 
brilliant narratives; never, in his numerous portraits, 
comes a line of moral suggestiveness, showing an eye for 
the deeper springs of character, the finer shades of motive. 
His inability to criticise works of poetry and fiction ex- 
tended to their chief subject— the human heart; and it 
may be noticed that the remarkable interest which he often 
awakens in a story which he tells so admirably, is nearly 
always the interest of adventure, never the interest of 
psychological analysis. Events and outward actions are 
told with incomparable clearness and vigor— but a thick 
curtain hangs before the inward theatre of the mind, 
which is never revealed on his stage. . . . The impressive- 
ness of remote suggestive association by which high art 
touches the deepest chords of feeling Macaulay, ap- 
parently, did not recognize. He had no ear for the finer 
harmonies of the inner life." — J. Cotter Morison. 

"Macaulay never stops to brood over an incident or a 
character, with an inner eye intent on penetrating to the 
lowest depth of motive and cause, to the furthest com- 
plexity of impulse, calculation, and subtle incentive. The 
spirit of analysis is not in him. His whole mind runs in 
action and movement; it busies itself with eager interest 
in all objective particulars. He is seized by the external 
and the superficial, and revels in every detail that ap- 
peals to the five senses." — John Morley. 

"As the serious flaw in Macaulay's mind was lack of 
depth, so the central defect, with which his productions 
appear to be chargeable, is a pervading strain of more or 
less exaggeration. He belonged to that class of minds 
whose views of single objects are singularly and almost 
preternaturally luminous. But Nature sows her bounty 
wide; and those who possess this precious and fascinating 
gift as to things in themselves are very commonly deficient 
beyond ordinary men in discerning and measuring their 
relation to one another. For them all things are either 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

absolutely transparent, or else unapproachable from dense 
and utter darkness. Hence, amid a blaze of glory, there 
is a want of perspective, of balance, and of breadth." 

"In Macaulay all history is scenic; and philosophy he 
scarcely seems to touch, except on the outer side, where 
it opens into action. . . . He was an enthusiastic admirer 
of Thucydides; but there can hardly be a sharper contrast 
than between the history of Thucydides and the history of 
Macaulay. Ease, brilliancy, pellucid clearness, command- 
ing fascination, the effective marshalling of all facts be- 
longing to the external world as if on parade; all these 
gifts Macaulay has, and Thucydides has not. But weight, 
breadth, proportion, deep discernment, habitual contem- 
plation of the springs of character and conduct, and the 
power to hold the scales of human action with firm and 
even hand, these must be sought in Thucydides, and are 
rarely observable in Macaulay."— W. E. Gladstone. 



IV 
THE PERIODICALS 

Addison, Johnson, and Macaulay were each closely asso- 
ciated with one or more great periodicals. In some re- 
spects the history of the "essay" in English begins with 
the first number of the "Tatler," April 12, 1709, edited 
by Addison's friend Richard Steele under the name of 
Isaac Bickerstaff. It was designed, as Steele explained 
in the Preface to the first volume, "to expose the false 
arts of life; to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, 
and affectation; and to recommend a general simplicity in 
our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour." Steele was 
joined in the conduct of the paper by Addison after the 
eighteenth number, and when the "Tatler" was discon- 
tinued in January, 1711, the two friends combined to 



INTRODUCTION xix 

produce the "Spectator," which ran from March. 1711, 
to December, 1712, and the "Guardian," from March, 
1713, to October of the same year. In 1714 Addison is- 
sued an eighth volume of the "Spectator" alone, and in 
1715 he edited the less famous "Freeholder," all of these 
having the same general aim and character. Notwith- 
standing the multitude of periodicals of the same class 
which appeared during the eighteenth century, these early 
essays in the periodicals named were never quite equalled. 
They are most nearly approached by Johnson's "Ram- 
bler" (1750-2), and "Idler" (1758-60), Fielding's "Co- 
vent Garden Journal" (1752), and Goldsmith's "Citizen of 
the World" (1760-1). 

The "Edinburgh Review," for which Macaulay was for 
many years by far the most eminent contributor, was 
founded in 1802 by a group of men of whom Francis 
Jeffrey and Sydney Smith were the guiding spirits, the 
former being editor of the "Review" from 1802 to 1829. 
It was at first politically independent, but before many 
years it became definitely Whig, and a secession from its 
management resulted in the founding (1809) of the Tory 
■"Quarterly Review." The "Edinburgh" is still one of the 
best of the great British reviews. In the "Edinburgh" 
and the "Quarterly" the literary essay known as the "re- 
view," as distinguished from the "intimate essay" of Addi- 
son, was developed. 

The complete volumes of the "Tatler," "Spectator," 
"'Guardian," "Idler," "Rambler," etc., are published in 
the series of British Essayists, edited by Chalmers in 
38 volumes for Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1854-7. 
The little volume of "Eighteenth Century Essays" edited 
by Austin Dobson (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.) con- 
tains selected types of the great essayists from Steele to 
Goldsmith, with introduction and notes. 



xr 



INTRODUCTION 



THE STUDY OF MACAULAY'S "ADDISON" 
AND "JOHNSON" 

Each teacher will naturally handle his subject in his own 
way. But all who study and teach these essays should at 
least recognize that they are engaged primarily with 
Macaulay's message and art, not simply with illustrations 
of certain rules in grammar and rhetoric. Rules of 
rhetoric may help us to make clear to ourselves the merits 
and the characteristic features of the great essayist's style, 
just as a knowledge of the rules of music paves the way to 
a fuller appreciation of Beethoven and Wagner than 
would be possible to an untrained lover of music. But 
they are the means to an end,— not the end itself,— and 
carefully as we should attend to all the formal side of 
literary study, far as we should be from despising the 
drudgery and the mastery of detail which are needed in 
the study of literature as in all other study that is worth 
while, yet formal analysis should never be allowed to ob- 
scure or make impossible sympathetic appreciation. The 
familiar hero who could not see the town because of the 
houses was no more foolishly blind than those who never 
really see in its beauty and completeness a poem or an 
essay, because their minds are full of formal, grammatical, 
or rhetorical details. 

So in some way let it be seen to that the vitality and 
interest which are so large a part of Macaulay's permanent 
charm are not choked and deadened. Detailed and formal 
study there must be, but let occasional discussion and 
criticism of Macaulay's point of view, expansion of some 
of his illustrations, or reading from some of his other 
writings— such as the "History" or the brilliant essays on 
Clive and Hastings— keep the student from thinking that 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

the formation of the paragraph is more important than 
the justice of a literary criticism, or the truth and beauty 
of an historical portrait. 

Macaulay's own breadth of information and fondness 
for varied, concrete illustrations, render necessary for in- 
telligent reading a mental range as broad as his own, a 
very full equipment of books of reference, or a fairly 
complete set of notes. The notes given in this volume are 
designed to make Macaulay's references speedily and en- 
tirely intelligible. The facts given are not set down to be 
memorized, but to assist in giving the author's words 
meaning and force. Yet many things— notwithstanding 
the editor's earnest efforts — must remain obscure unless 
the student has some tolerable knowledge of the literary 
and national history of England in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. A good history of England, such as Green's, Gar- 
diner's, Andrews', or Cheyney's should be accessible, and 
the teacher ought also to have within his reach Trevelyan's 
"Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay"; Cotter Morison's 
"Macaulay," in the "English Men of Letters" series; 
Arnold's selections from Johnson's "Lives of the Poets"; 
some good collection of selected essays from "The Spec- 
tator"; and Boswell's "Life of Dr. Johnson." Of the last 
named the best edition is that of Birkbeck Hill, but others 
may sometimes be had more easily, and the cheap, one- 
volume edition of Routledge is much better than nothing. 
A convenient edition of Macaulay's complete essays is 
Longman's Popular Edition. The "Addison" is to be 
found in the volume entitled "Macaulay's Essays," and 
the "Johnson," in "Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings 
and Speeches." 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF 
ADDISON 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF 
ADDISON 



SOME reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares 
to publish a book renounces by that act the franchises 
appertaining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from 
the utmost rigor of critical procedure. From that opinion 
we dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country which 5 
boasts of many female writers, eminently qualified by their 
talents and acquirements to influence the public mind, it 
would be of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate 
history or unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass 
uncensured, merely because the offender chanced to be a 10 
lady. But we conceive that, on such occasions, a critic 
would do well to imitate the courteous Knight who found 
himself compelled by duty to keep the lists against Brada- 
mante. He, we are told, defended successfully the cause 
of which he was the champion ; but, before the fight began, 15 
exchanged Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he 
carefully blunted the point' and edge. 1 

Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities which 
Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her works, 
and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of the Reign of 20 
James the First, have fully entitled her to the privileges 
enjoj-ed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold 
to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky 
choice of a subject, or from the indolence too often pro- 
duced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be sub- 25 
jected to the severe discipline which it is sometimes neces- 

1 " Orlando Furioso." xlv. 68. 
3 



4 - MACAULAY 

sary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely 
be reminded by a gentle touch, like that with which the 
Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high 
time to wake. 
5 Our readers will probably infer from what we have said 
that Miss Aikin' s book has disappointed us. The truth is, 
that she is not well acquainted with her subject. No per- 
son who is not familiar with the political and literary 
history of England during the reigns of William the 

10 Third, of Anne, and of George the First, can possibly 
write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach 
to Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay her a 
compliment, when we say that her studies have taken a 
different direction. She is better acquainted with Shake- 

15 speare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and Prior; and is 
far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of 
Theobald's, than among the Steenkirks and floAving peri- 
wigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea-table at Hamp- 
ton. She seems to have written about the Elizabethan 

20 age, because she had read much about it; she seems, on 
the other hand, to have read a little about the age of Addi- 
son, because she had determined to write about it. The 
consequence is that she has had to describe men and things 
without having either a correct or a vivid idea of them, 

25 and that she has often fallen into errors of a very serious 
kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin has justly earned 
stands so high, and the charm of Addison's letters is so 
great, that a second edition of this work may probably be 
required. If so, we hope that every paragraph will be 

30 revised, and that every date and fact about which there 
can be the smallest doubt will be carefully verified. 

To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as 
much like affection as any sentiment can be, which is in- 
spired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty 

35 years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, that this 
feeling will not betray us into that abject idolatry which 
we have often had occasion to reprehend in others, and 
which seldom fails to make both the idolater and the idol 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 5 

ridiculous. A man of genius and virtue is but a man. All 
his powers cannot be equally developed ; nor can we expect 
from him perfect self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, 
hesitate to admit that Addison has left us some composi- 
tions which do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic 5 
poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as super- 
ficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better 
than Dr. Johnson's. It is praise enough to say of a writer 
that, in a high department of literature, in which many 
eminent writers have distinguished themselves, he has had 10 
no equal; and this may with strict justice be said of 
Addison: 

As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration which 
he received from those who, bewitched by his fascinating 
society, and indebted for all the comforts of life to his 15 
generous and delicate friendship, worshipped him nightly, 
in his favorite temple at Button's. But, after full in- 
quiry and impartial reflection, we have long been con- 
vinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can be 
justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring race. Some 20 
blemishes may undoubtedly be detected in his character; 
but the more carefully it is examined, the ' more will it 
appear, to use the phrase of the old anatomists, sound in 
the noble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cow- 
ardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. Men may 25 
easily be named, in whom some particular good disposition 
has been more conspicuous than in Addison. But the just 
harmony of qualities, the exact temper between the stern 
and the humane virtues, the habitual observance of every 
law, not only of moral rectitude, but of moral grace and 30 
dignity, distinguish him from all men who have been tried 
by equally strong temptations, and about whose conduct 
we possess equally full information. 

His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, who, 
though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some fig- 35 
ure in the world, and occupies with credit two folio pages 
in the "Biographia Britannica." Lancelot was sent up, as a 
poor scholar, from Westmoreland to Queen's College, Ox- 



6 MACAULAY 

ford, in the time of the Commonwealth, made some prog- 
ress in learning, became, like most of his fellow students, 
a violent Royalist, lampooned the heads of the University, 
and was forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. When 
5 he had left college, he earned a humble subsistence by 
reading the liturgy of the fallen Church to the families of 
those sturdy squires whose manor houses were scattered 
over the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his 
loyalty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to the gar- 

10 rison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France, he 
lost his employment. But Tangier had been ceded by 
Portugal to England as part of the marriage portion of the 
Infanta Catharine; and to Tangier Lancelot Addison was 
sent. A more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. 

15 It was difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers 
were more tormented by the heats or by the rains, by the 
soldiers within the wall or by the Moors without it. One 
advantage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent op- 
portunity of studying the history and manners of Jews 

20 and Mahometans; and of this opportunity he appears to 
have made excellent use. On his return to England, after 
some years of banishment, he published an interesting vol- 
ume on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another 
on the Hebrew Customs and the State of Rabbinical 

25 Learning. He rose to eminence in his profession, and be- 
came one of the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, 
Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. It is 
said that he would have been made a bishop after the 
Revolution, if he had not given offence to the government 

30 by strenuously opposing, in the Convocation of 1689, the 
liberal policy of William and Tillotson. 

In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from 
Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's childhood 
we know little. He learned his rudiments at schools in his 

35 father's neighborhood, and was then sent to the Charter 
House. The anecdotes which are popularly related about 
his boyish tricks do not harmonize very well with what we 
know of his riper years. There remains a tradition that 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 7 

he was the ringleader in a barring-out, and another tradi- 
tion that he ran away from school and hid himself in a 
wood, where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, 
till after a long search he was discovered and brought 
home. If these stories be true, it would be curious to 5 
know by what moral discipline so mutinous and enter- 
prising- a lad was transformed into the gentlest and most 
modest of men. 

We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's pranks 
may have been, he pursued his studies vigorously and sue- 10 
oessfully. At fifteen he was not only fit for the university, 
but carried thither a classical taste and a stock of learning 
which would have done honor to a Master of Arts. He 
was entered at Queen's College, Oxford; but he had not 
been many months there, when some of his Latin verses 15 
fell by accident into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of 
Magdalen College. The young- scholar's diction and 
versification were already such as veteran professors 
might envy. Dr. Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy 
of such promise; nor was an opportunity long wanting. 20 
The Revolution had just taken place; and nowhere had it 
been hailed with more delight than at Magdalen College. 
That great and opulent corporation had been treated by 
James, and by his Chancellor, with an insolence and in- 
justice which, even in such a Prince and in such a Min- 25 
ister, may justly excite amazement, and which had done 
more than even the prosecution of the Bishops to alienate 
the Church of England from the throne. A president, 
duly elected, had been violently expelled from his dwell- 
ing; a Papist had been set over the society by a royal 30 
mandate ; the Fellows who, in conformity with their oaths, 
had refused to submit to this usurper, had been driven 
forth from their quiet cloisters and gardens, to die of want 
or to live on charity. But the day of redress and retri- 
bution speedily came. The intruders were ejected; the 35 
venerable House was again inhabited by its old inmates: 
learning flourished under the rule of the wise and virtuous 
Hough; and with learning was united a mild and liberal 



8 MACAULAY 

spirit too often wanting in the princely colleges of Oxford. 
In consequence of the troubles through which the society 
had passed, there had been no valid election of new mem- 
bers during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, there- was 

5 twice the ordinary number of vacancies; and thus Dr. 
Lancaster found it easy to procure for his young friend 
admittance to the advantages of a foundation then gen- 
erally esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. 

At Magdalen Addison resided during ten years. He 

10 was, at first, one of those scholars who are called Demies, 
but was subsequently elected a fellow. His college is still 
proud of his name: his portrait still hangs in the hall; 
and strangers are still told that his favorite walk was 
under the elms which fringe the meadow on the banks of 

15 the Cherwell. It is said, and is highly probable, that he 
was distinguished among his fellow students by the deli- 
cacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his manners, and 
by the assiduity with which he often prolonged his studies 
far into the night. It is certain that his reputation for 

20 ability and learning stood high. Many years later, the 
ancient Doctors of Magdalen continued to talk in their 
common room of his boyish compositions, and expressed 
their sorrow that no copy of exercises so remarkable had 
been preserved. 

25 It is proper, however, to remark that Miss Aikin has 
committed the error, very pardonable in a lady, of over- 
rating Addison's classical attainments. In one depart- 
ment of learning, indeed, his proficiency was such as it is 
hardly possible to overrate. His knowledge of the Latin 

30 poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and 
Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound. He un- 
derstood them thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and 
had the finest and most discriminating perception of all 
their peculiarities of style and melody; nay, he copied 

35 their manner with admirable skill, and surpassed, we 
think, all their British imitators who had preceded him, 
Buchanan and Milton alone excepted. This is high praise ; 
and beyond this we cannot with justice go. It is clear that 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 9 

Addison's serious attention, during his residence at the 
university, was almost entirely concentrated on Latin 
poetry, and that, if he did not wholly neglect other 
provinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to them 
only a cursory glance. He does not appear to have at- 5 
tained more than an ordinary acquaintance with the polit- 
ical and moral writers of Rome; nor was his own Latin 
prose by any means equal to his Latin verse. His know- 
ledge of Greek, though doubtless such as was, in his time, 
thought respectable at Oxford, was evidently less than 10 
that which many lads now carry away every year from 
Eton and Rugby. A minute examination of his works, 
if we had time to make such an examination, would fully 
bear out these remarks. We will briefly advert to a few 
of the facts on which our judgment is grounded. is 

Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison ap- 
pended to his version of the second and third books of 
the Metamorphoses. Yet those notes, while they show 
him to have been, in his own domain, an accomplished 
scholar, show also how confined that domain was. They 20 
are rich in apposite references to Virgil, Statius, and 
Claudi%n; but they contain not a single illustration drawn 
from the Greek poets. Now, if, in the whole compass of 
Latin literature, there be a passage which stands in need 
of illustration drawn from the Greek poets, it is the story 25 
of Pentheus in the third book of the Metamorphoses. 
Ovid was indebted for that story to Euripides and Theo- 
critus, both of whom he has sometimes followed minutely. 
But neither to Euripides nor to Theocritus does Addison 
make the faintest allusion; and we, therefore, believe that 30 
we do not wrong him by supposing that he had little or no 
knowledge of their works. 

His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quota- 
tions happily introduced ; but scarcely one of those quota- 
tions is in prose. He draws more illustrations from 35 
Ausonius and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his 
notions of the political and military affairs of the Romans 
seem to be derived from poets and poetasters. Spots 



10 MACAULAY 

made memorable by events which have changed the desti- 
nies of the world, and which have been worthily recorded 
by great historians, bring to his mind only scraps of some 
ancient versifier. In the gorge of the Apennines he natu- 
5 rally remembers the hardships which Hannibal's army 
endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative 
of Polybius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, but 
the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks 
of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's lively de- 

10 scription, or of the stern conciseness of the Commentaries, 
or of those letters to Atticus which so forcibly express the 
alternations of hope and fear in a sensitive mind at a 
great crisis. His only authority for the events of the 
civil war is Lucan. 

15 All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Florence 
are Greek. Addison saw them, however, without recalling 
one single verse of Pindar, of Callimachus, or of the Attic 
dramatists; but they brought to his recollection innumer- 
able passages of Horace, Juvenal, Statius, and Ovid. 

20 The same may be said of the "Treatise on Medals." Jn 
that pleasing work we find about three hundred passages 
extracted with great judgment from the Roman poQts ; but 
we do not recollect a single passage taken from any 
Roman orator or historian; and we are confident that not 

25 a line is quoted from any Greek writer. No person, who 
had derived all his information on the subject of medals 
from Addison, would suspect that the Greek coins were in 
historical interest equal, and in beauty of execution far 
superior to those of Rome 

30 If it were necessary to find any further proof that Addi- 
son's classical knowledge was confined within narrow 
limits, that proof would be furnished by his "Essay on 
the Evidences of Christianity." The Roman poets throw 
little or no light on the literary and historical questions 

35 which he is under the necessity of examining in that 
Essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the dark; and 
it is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way 
from blunder to blunder. He assigns, as grounds for his 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 11 

religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the Cock-Lane 
ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's "Vortigern," puts 
faith in the lie about the Thundering Legion, is convinced 
that Tiberius moved the Senate to admit Jesus among the 
gods, and pronounces the letter of Abgarus, King of 5 
Edessa, to be a record of great authority. Nor were these 
errors the effects of superstition ; for to superstition Addi- 
son was by no means prone. The truth is that he was 
writing about what he did not understand. 

Miss Aikin has discovered a letter, from which it ap- 10 
pears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one 
of several writers whom the booksellers engaged to make 
an English version of Herodotus; and she infers that he 
must have been a good Greek scholar. We can allow very 
little weight to this argument, when we consider that his 15 
fellow-laborers were to have been Boyle and Blackmore. 
Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nominal author of the 
worst book on Greek history and philology that ever was 
printed; and this book, bad as it is, Boyle was unable to 
produce without help. Of Blackmore's attainments in 20 
the ancient tongues, it may be sufficient to say that, 
in his prose, he has confounded an aphorism with an 
apophthegm, and that when, in his verse, he treats of 
classical subjects, his habit is to regale his readers with 
four false quantities to a page. 25 

It is probable that the classical acquirements of Addison 
were of as much service to him as if they had been more 
extensive. The world generally gives its admiration, not 
to the man who does what nobody else even attempts to 
do, but to the man who does best what multitudes do well. 30 
Bentley was so immeasurably superior to all the other 
scholars of his time that few among them could discover 
his superiority. But the accomplishment in which Addi- 
son excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now, 
highly valued and assiduously cultivated at all English 35 
seats of learning. Everybody who had been at a public 
school had written Latin verses; many had written such 
verses with tolerable success, and were quite able to appre- 



12 MACAULAY 

ciate, though by no means able to rival, the skill with 
which Addison imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barom- 
eter and the Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, 
to whom the "Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris" 
5 was as unintelligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. 
Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are com- 
mon to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favorite piece is 
the "Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies"; for in that 
piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humor which 

10 many years later enlivened thousands of breakfast-tables. 
Swift boasted that he was never known to steal a hint; 
and he certainly owed as little to his predecessors as any 
modern writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting that he 
borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest 

15 touches in his Voyage to Lilliput from Addison's 
verses. Let our readers judge. 

"The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is taller by about the 
breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is 
enough to strike an awe into the beholders." 

20 About thirty years before "Gulliver's Travels" ap- 
peared, Addison wrote these lines : 

" Jamque aeies inter medias sese arduus infert 
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, ma j estate verendus, 
Incessuque. gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 
25 Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." 

The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly 
admired both at Oxford and Cambridge, before his name 
had ever been heard by the wits who thronged the coffee- 
houses round Drury-Lane theatre. In his twenty-second 

30 year, he ventured to appear before the public as a writer 
of English verse. He addressed some complimentary 
lines to Dryden, who, after many triumphs and many 
reverses, had at length reached a secure and lonely emi- 
nence among the literary men of that age. Dryden ap- 

35 pears to have been much gratified by the young scholar's 
praise; and an interchange of civilities and good offices 
followed. Addison was probably introduced by Dryden 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 13 

to Congreve, and was certainly presented by Congreve to 
Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House of 
Commons. 

At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself 5 
to poetry. He published a translation of part of the 
fourth Georgic, Lines to King William, and other per- 
formances of equal value, that is to say, of no value at all. 
But in those days, the public was in the habit of receiving 
with applause pieces which would now have little chance 10 
of obtaining the Newdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. 
And the reason is obvious. The heroic couplet was then 
the favorite measure. The art of arranging words in that 
measure, so that the lines may flow smoothly, that the 
accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the 15 
ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of 
every distich, is an art as mechanical as that of mending 
a kettle or shoeing a horse, and may be learned by any 
human being who has sense enough to learn anything. 
But, like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved 20 
by means of many experiments and many failures. It 
was reserved for Pope to discover the trick, to make him- 
self complete master of it, and to teach it to everybody 
else. From the time when his "Pastorals" appeared, heroic 
versification became matter of rule and compass; and, be- 25 
fore long, all artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces 
who never blundered on one happy thought or expression 
were able to write reams of couplets which, as far as 
euphony was concerned, could not be distinguished from 
those of Pope himself, and which very clever writers of 30 
the reign of Charles the Second, Rochester, for example, 
or Marvel, or Oldham, would have contemplated with ad- 
miring despair. 

Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. 
But Hoole, coming after Pope, had learned how to manu- 35 
facture decasyllable verses, and poured them forth by 
thousands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as 
smooth, and as like each other as the blocks which have 



14 MACAULAY 

passed through Mr. Brunei's mill, in the dockyard at 
Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely 
hewn out by an unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet. 
Take as a specimen his translation of a celebrated passage 
5 in the iEneid : 

"This child pur parent earth, stirr'd up with spite 
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, 
She was last sister of that giant race 
That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, 
10 And swifter far of wing, a monster vast 

And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes 
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise 
In the report, as many tongues she wears. ' ' 

15 Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the neat 
fabric which Hoole's machine produces in unlimited abun- 
dance. We take the first lines on which we open in his 
version of Tasso. They are neither better nor worse than 
the rest: 

20 "O thou, whoe 'er thou art, whose steps are led, 

By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 
No greater wonders east or west can boast 
Than you small island on the pleasing coast. 
If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 

25 The current pass, and seek the further shore. ' ' 

Ever since the time of Pope there has been a glut of 
lines of this sort ; and we are now as little disposed to ad- 
mire a man for being able to write them, as for being able 
to write his name. But in the days of William the Third 

30 such versification was rare; and a rhymer who had any 
skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the dark ages 
a person who could write his name passed for a great 
clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and 
others whose only title to fame was that they said in 

35 tolerable metre what might have been as well said in 
prose, or what was not worth saying at all, were honored 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 15 

with marks of distinction which ought to be reserved for 
genius. With these Addison must have ranked, if he had 
not earned true and lasting glory by performances which 
very little resembled his juvenile poems. 

Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from 5 
Addison a critical preface to the Georgics. In return for 
this service, and for other services of the same kind, the 
veteran poet, in the postscript to the translation of the 
iEneid, complimented his young friend with great liber- 
ality, and indeed w T ith more liberality than sincerity. He 10 
affected to be afraid that his own performance would not 
sustain a comparison with the version of the fourth 
Georgic, by "the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." 
"After his bees," added Dryden, "my latter swarm is 
scarcely worth the hiving." 15 

The time had now arrived when it was necessary for 
Addison to choose a calling. Everything seemed to point 
his course towards the clerical profession. His habits 
were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college had large 
ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts. that it has' 20 
given at least one bishop to almost every see in England. 
Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honorable place in the 
Church, and had set his heart on seeing his son a clergy- 
man. It is clear, from some expressions in the young 
man's, rhymes, that his intention was to take orders. But 25 
Charles Montague interfered. Montague had first brought 
himself into notice by verses, well timed and not con- 
temptibly written, but never, we think, rising above medio- 
crity. Fortunately for himself and for his country, he 
early quitted poetry, in which he could never have at- 30 
tained a rank as high as that of Dorset or Rochester, and 
turned his mind to official and parliamentary business. It 
is written that the ingenious person who undertook to 
instruct Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of flying, 
ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into the 35 
air, and instantly dropped into the lake. But it is added 
that the wings, which were unable to support him through 
the sky, bore him up effectually as soon as he was in the 



16 MACAULAY 

water. This is no bad type of the fate of Charles Mon- 
tague, and of men like him. When he attempted to soar 
into the regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed ; 
but, as soon as he had descended from that ethereal eleva- 

5 tion into a lower and grosser element, his talents instantly 
raised him above the mass. He became a distinguished 
financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still 
retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days; 
but he showed that fondness, not by wearying the public 

10 with his own feeble performances, but by discovering and 
encouraging literary excellence in others. A crowd of 
wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him as 
a competitor, revered him as a judge and a patron. In 
his plans for the encouragement of learning, he was cor- 

15 dially supported by the ablest and most virtuous of his 
colleagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. Though both 
these great statesmen had a sincere love of letters, it was 
not solely from a love of letters that they were desirous 
to enlist youths of high intellectual qualifications in the 

20 public service. The Revolution had altered the whole sys- 
tem of government. Before that event the press had been 
controlled by censors, and the Parliament had sat only 
two months in eight years. Now the press was free, and 
had begun to exercise unprecedented influence on the 

25 public mind. Parliament met annually and sat long. The 
chief power in the State had passed to the House of 
Commons. At such a conjuncture, it was natural that 
literary and oratorical talents should rise in value. There 
was danger that a Government which neglected such tal- 

30 ents might be subverted by them. It was, therefore, a 
profound and enlightened policy which led Montague and 
Somers to attach such talents to the Whig party, by the 
strongest ties both of interest and of gratitude. 

It is remarkable that in a neighboring country, we have 

35 recently seen similar effects follow from similar causes. 
The Revolution of July, 1830, established representative 
government in France. The men of letters instantly 
rose to the highest importance in the state. At the pres- 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 17 

ent moment most of the persons whom we see at the head 
both of the Administration and of the Opposition have 
been Professors, Historians, Journalists, Poets. The influ- 
ence of the literary class in England, during the genera- 
tion which followed the Revolution, was great, but by no 5 
means so great as it has lately been in France. For, in 
England, the aristocracy of intellect had to contend with 
a powerful and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very dif- 
ferent kind. France has no Somersets and Shrewsburys 
to keep down her Addisons and Priors. 10 

It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just com- 
pleted his twenty-seventh year, that the course of his life 
was finally determined. Both the great chiefs of the Min- 
istry were kindly disposed towards him. In political opin- 
ions he already was what he continued to be through life, 15 
a firm, though a moderate Whig. He had addressed the 
most polished and vigorous of his early English lines to 
Somers, and had dedicated to Montague a Latin poem, 
truly Virgilian, both in style and rhythm, on the peace of 
Ryswick. The wish of the young poet's great friends 20 
was, it should seem, to employ him in the service of the 
crown abroad. But an intimate knowledge of the French 
language was a qualification indispensable to a diplo- 
matist; and this qualification Addison had not acquired. 
It was, therefore, thought desirable that he should pass 25 
some time on the Continent in preparing himself for offi- 
cial employment. His own means were not such as would 
enable him to travel; but a pension of three hundred 
pounds a year was procured for him by the interest of 
the Lord Chancellor. It seems to have been apprehended 30 
that some difficulty might be started by the rulers of Mag- 
dalen College. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. The State— such 
was the purport of Montague's letter— could not, at that 
time, spare to the Church such a man as Addison. Too 35 
many high civil posts were already occupied by adven- 
turers, who, destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, 
at once pillaged and disgraced the country which they 



18 MACAULAY 

pretended to serve. It had become necessary to recruit 
for the public service from a very different class, from 
that class of which Addison was a representative. The 
close of the Minister's letter was remarkable. "I am 

5 called," he said, "an enemy of the Church. But I will 
never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison 
out of it." 

This interference was successful; and, in the summer of 
1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still 

10 retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and 
set out on his travels. He crossed from Dover to Calais, 
proceeded to Paris, and was received there with great 
kindness and politeness by a kinsman of his friend Mon- 
tague, Charles, Earl of Manchester, who had just been 

15 appointed Ambassador to the Court of France. The 
Countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as gracious 
as her lord ; for Addison long retained an agreeable recol- 
lection of the impression which she at this time made on 
him, and, in some lively lines written on the glasses of 

20 the Kit Cat Club, described the envy which her cheeks, 
glowing with the genuine bloom of England, had excited 
among the painted beauties of Versailles. 

Louis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the 
vices of his youth by a devotion which had no root in 

25 reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The servile litera- 
ture of France had changed its character to suit the 
changed character of the prince. No book appeared that 
had not an air of sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, 
had passed the close of his life in writing sacred dramas; 

30 and Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian mysteries in 
Plato. Addison described this state of things in a short 
but lively and graceful letter to Montague. Another let- 
ter, written about the same time to the Lord Chancellor, 
conveyed the strongest assurances of gratitude and at- 

35 tachment. "The only return I can make to your Lord- 
ship," said Addison, "will be to apply myself entirely to 
my business." With this view he quitted Paris and re- 
paired to Blois, a place where it was supposed that the 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 19 

French language was spoken in its highest purity, and 
where not a single Englishman could be found. Here he 
passed some months pleasantly and prolitably. Of his 
way of life at Blois, one of his associates, an Abbe named 
Philippeaux, gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this 5 
account is to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused 
much, talked little, had fits of absence, and either had no 
love affairs, or was too discreet to confide them to the 
Abbe. A man who, even when surrounded by fellow 
countrymen and fellow students, had always been remark- 10 
ably shy and silent, was not likely to be loquacious in a 
foreign tongue, and among foreign companions. But it 
is clear from Addison's letters, some of which were long 
after published in the "Guardian," that, while he appeared 
to be absorbed in his own meditations, he was really ob- 15 
serving French society with that keen and sly, yet not 
ill-natured side glance, which was peculiarly his own. 

From Blois he returned to Paris; and, having now mas- 
tered the French language, found great pleasure in the 
society of French philosophers and poets. He gave an 20 
account, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly inter- 
esting conversations, one with Malbranche, the other with 
Boileau. Malbranche expressed great partiality for the, 
English, and extolled the genius of Newton, but shook 
his head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so 25 
unjust as to call the author of the "Leviathan" a poor, 
silly creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from 
fully relating, in his letter, the circumstances of his intro- 
duction to Boileau. Boileau, having survived the friends 
and rivals of his youth, old, deaf, and melancholy, lived 30 
in retirement, seldom went either to Court or to the Acad- 
emy, and was almost inaccessible to strangers. Of the 
English and of English literature he knew nothing. He 
had hardly heard the name of Dryden. Some of our 
countrymen, in the warmth of their patriotism, have as- 85 
serted that this ignorance must have been affected. We 
own that we see no ground for such a supposition. Eng- 
lish literature was to the French of the age of Louis the 



20 MACAULAY 

Fourteenth what German literature was to our own grand- 
fathers. Very few, we suspect, of the accomplished men 
who, sixty or seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester 
Square with Sir Joshua, or at Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, 
5 had the slightest notion that Wieland was one of the 
first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dispute, the 
first critic in Europe. Boileau knew just as little about 
the "Paradise Lost," and about "Absalom and Achitophel" ; 
but he had read Addison's Latin poems, and admired them 

10 greatly. They had given him, he said, quite a new notion 
of the state of learning and taste among the English. 
Johnson will have it that these praises were insincere. 
"Nothing," says he, "is better known of Boileau than that 
he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern 

15 Latin ; and therefore his profession of regard was prob- 
ably the effect of his civility rather than approbation." 
Now, nothing is better known of Boileau than that he was 
singularly sparing of compliments. We do not remember 
that either friendship or fear ever induced him to bestow 

20 praise on any composition which he did not approve. On 
literary questions, his caustic, disdainful, and self-confi- 
dent spirit rebelled against that authority to which every 
thing else in France bowed down. He had the spirit to 
tell Louis the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his 

25 Majesty knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses 
which were detestable. What was there in Addison's posi- 
tion that could induce the satirist, whose stern and fas- 
tidious temper had been the dread of two generations, to 
turn sycophant for the first and last time 1 ? Nor was 

30 Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or 
peevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first 
order would ever be written in a dead language. And did 
he think amiss? Has not the experience of centuries con- 
firmed his opinion ? Boileau also thought it probable that, 

35 in the best modern Latin, a writer of the Augustan age 
would have detected ludicrous improprieties. And who 
can think otherwise? What modern scholar can honestly 
declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the style of 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 21 

Livy? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of Livy, 
Pollio, whose taste had been formed on the banks of the 
Tiber, detected the inelegant idiom of the Po? Has any 
modern scholar understood Latin better than Frederick 
the Great understood French? Yet is it not notorious 5 
that Frederick the Great, after reading, speaking, writing 
French, and nothing but French, during more than half 
a century, after unlearning his mother tongue in order to 
learn French, after living familiarly during many years 
with French associates, could not, to the last, compose in 10 
French, without imminent risk of committing some mis- 
take which would have moved a smile in the literary circles 
of Paris'? Do we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius 
wrote Latin as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter 
Scott wrote English? And are there not in the "Disser- 15 
tation on India," the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in 
"Waverley," in "Marmion," Scotticisms at which a Lon- 
don apprentice would laugh? But does it follow, because 
we think thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the 
noble alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs of Vin- 20 
cent Bourne? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant 
or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good 
modern Latin. In the very letter to which Johnson al- 
ludes, Boileau says— "Ne croyez pas pourtant que je 
veuille par la blamer les vers Latins que vous m'avez en- 25 
voyes d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai trouves 
fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non 
pas d'Horace et de Virgile." Several poems, in modern 
Latin, have been praised by Boileau quite as liberally as 
it was his habit to praise anything. He says, for example, 30 
of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to 
have come to life again. But the best proof that Boileau 
did not feel the undiscerning contempt for modern Latin 
verses which has been imputed to him, is, that he wrote 
and published Latin verses in several metres. Indeed it hap- 35 
pens, curiously enough, that the most severe censure ever 
pronounced by him on modern Latin is conveyed in Latin 
hexameters. We allude to the fragment which begins— 



22 MACAULAY 

"Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, 
Musa, jubes?" 

For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which 

5 Boileau bestowed on the Machinae Gesticulantes, and the 
Germio-Pygmaeomachia, was sincere. He certainly opened 
himself to Addison with a freedom which was a sure indi- 
cation of esteem. Literature was the chief subject of 
conversation. The old man talked on his favorite theme 

10 much and well; indeed, as his young hearer thought, in- 
comparably well. Boileau had undoubtedly some of the 
qualities of a great critic. He wanted imagination; but 
he had strong sense. His literary code was formed on 
narrow principles; but in applying it, he showed great 

15 judgment and penetration. In mere style, abstracted from 
the ideas of which style is the garb, his taste was excellent. 
He was well acquainted with the great Greek writers; 
and, though unable fully to appreciate their creative 
genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner, 

20 and had learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. 
It is easy, we think, to discover, in the "Spectator" and 
the "Guardian," traces of the influence, in part salutary 
and in part pernicious, which the mind of Boileau had on 
the mind of Addison. 

25 While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which 
made that capital a disagreeable residence for an English- 
man and a Whig. Charles, second of the name, King of 
Spain, died; and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, 
Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. The King 

30 of France, in direct violation of his engagements both with 
Great Britain and with the States General, accepted the 
bequest on behalf of his grandson. The house of Bourbon 
was at the summit of human grandeur. England had been 
outwitted, and found herself in a situation at once de- 

35 grading and perilous. The people of France, not presag- 
ing the calamities by which they were destined to expiate 
the perfidy of their sovereign, went mad with pride and 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 23 

delight. Every man looked as if a great estate had just 
been left him. "The French conversation/' said Addison, 
"begins to grow insupportable; that which was before the 
vainest nation in the world is now worse than ever." Sick 
of the arrogant exultation of the Parisians, and probably 5 
foreseeing that the peace between France and England 
could not be of long duration, he set off for Italy. 

In December, 1700, 1 he embarked at Marseilles. As he 
glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the 
sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retained their 10 
verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he en- 
countered one of the black storms of the Mediterranean. 
The captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed 
himself to a capuchin who happened to be on board. The 
English heretic, in the mean time, fortified himself against 15 
the terrors of death with devotions of a very different 
kind. How strong an impression this perilous voyage 
made on him, appears from the ode, "How are thy ser- 
vants blest, Lord!" which was long after published in 
the "Spectator." After some days of discomfort and 20 
danger, Addison was glad to land at Savona, and to make 
his way, over mountains where no road had yet been hewn 
out by art, to the city of Genoa. 

At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the nobles 
whose names were inscribed on her Book of Gold, Addison 25 
made a short stay. He admired the narrow streets over- 
hung by long lines of towering palaces, the walls rich with 
frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the Annunciation, and 
the tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories of 
the house of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he 30 
contemplated the Gothic magnificence of the cathedral with 
more wonder than pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus 
while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as 
they raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, 

1 It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of his travels, 
aave misdated his departure from Marseilles by a whole year, and still 
more strange that this slip of the pen, which throws the whole narra- 
tive into inextricable confusion, should have been repeated in a suc- 
cession of editions and never detected by Tickell or by Hurd. 



24 MACAULAY 

then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the 
Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the midst of 
masques, dances, and' serenades. Here he was at once 
diverted and provoked", by the absurd dramatic pieces 
5 which then disgraced* the Italian stage. To one of those 
pieces, however, he was indebted for a valuable hint. He 
was present when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato 
was performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daugh- 
ter of Scipio. The lady had given her heart to Caesar. 

10 The rejected lover determined to destroy himself. He ap- 
peared seated in his library, a dagger in his hand, a 
Plutarch and a Tasso before him; and, in this position, he 
pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the blow. We 
are surprised that so remarkable a circumstance as this 

is should have escaped the notice of all Addison's biog- 
raphers. There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest doubt 
that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and anachron- 
isms, struck the traveller's imagination, and suggested to 
him the thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. 

20 It is well known that about this time he began his tragedy, 
and that he finished the first four acts before he returned 
to England. 

On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some 
miles out of the beaten road, by a wish to see the smallest 

25 independent state in Europe. On a rock where the snow 
still lay, though the Italian spring was now far advanced, 
was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads 
which led to the secluded town were so bad that few trav- 
ellers had ever visited it, and none had ever published an 

30 account of it. Addison could not suppress a good-natured 
smile at the simple manners and institutions of this sin- 
gular community. But he observed, with the exultation of 
a Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the 
territory of the republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, 

35 and contented peasantry, while the rich plain which sur- 
rounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual tyranny was 
scarcely less desolate than the uncleared wilds of America. 
At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 25 

enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pan- 
theon. His haste is the more extraordinary because the 
Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no hint 
which can enable us to pronounce why he chose to fly from 
a spectacle which every year allures from distant regions 5 
persons of far less taste and sensibility than his. Possi- 
bly, travelling, as he did, at the charge of a Government 
distinguished by its enmity to the Church of Rome, he 
may have thought that it would be imprudent in him 
to assist at the most magnificent rite of that Church. 10 
Many eyes would be upon him; and he might find it diffi- 
cult to behave in such a manner as to give offence neither 
to his patrons in England, nor to those among whom he 
resided. Whatever his motives may have been, he turned 
his back on the most august and affecting ceremony which 15 
is known among men, and posted along the Appian Way 
to Naples. 

Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, its 
chief attractions. The lovely bay and the awful mountain 
were indeed there. But a farmhouse stood on the theatre 20 
of Herculaneum, and rows of vines grew over the streets 
of Pompeii. The temples of Psestuni had not indeed been 
hidden from the eye of man by any great convulsion of 
nature; but, strange to say, their existence was a secret 
even to artists and antiquaries. Though situated within a 25 
few hours' journey of a great capital, where Salvator 
had not long before painted, and where Vico was then 
lecturing, those noble remains were as little known to 
Europe as the ruined cities overgrown by the forests of 
Yucatan. What was to be seen at Naples, Addison saw. 30 
He climbed Vesuvius, explored the tunnel of Posilipo, and 
wandered among the vines and almond trees of Capreae. 
But neither the wonders of nature, nor those of art, could 
so occupy his attention as to prevent him from noticing, 
though cursorily, the abuses of the government and the 35 
misery of the people. The great kingdom which had just 
descended to Philip the Fifth was in a state of paralytic 
dotage. Even Castile and Aragon were sunk in wretched- 



20 MACAULAY 

ness. Yet, compared with the Italian dependencies of the 
Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon might be called pros- 
perous. It is clear that all the observations which Addi- 
son made in Italy tended to confirm him in the political 

5 opinions which he had adopted at home. To the last, he 
always spoke of foreign travel as the best cure for Jacob- 
itism. In his "Freeholder," the Tory fox-hunter asks what 
travelling is good for, except to teach a man to jabber 
French, and to talk against passive obedience. 

10 From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along 
the coast which his favorite Virgil had celebrated. The 
felucca passed the headland where the oar and trumpet 
were placed by the Trojan adventurers on the tomb of 
Misenus, and anchored at night under the shelter of the 

15 fabled promontory of Circe. The voyage ended in the 
Tiber, still overhung with dark verdure, and still turbid 
with yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of ^Eneas. 
From the ruined port of Ostia, the stranger hurried to 
Rome; and at Rome he remained during those hot and 

20 sickly months when, even in the Augustan age, all who 
could make their escape fled from mad dogs and from 
streets black with funerals, to gather the first figs of the 
season in the country. It is probable that, when he, long 
after, poured forth in verse his gratitude to the Provi- 

25 dence which had enabled him to breathe unhurt in tainted 
air, he was thinking of the August and September which 
he passed at Rome. 

It was not till the latter end of October that he tore 
himself away from the masterpieces of ancient and 

30 modern art which are collected in the city so long the 
mistress of the world. He then journeyed northward, 
passed through Sienna, and for a moment forgot his 
prejudices in favor of classic architecture as he looked 
on the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent some 

35 days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with the 
pleasures of ambition, and impatient of its pains, fearing 
both parties, and loving neither, had determined to hide 
in an Italian retreat talents and accomplishments which, 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 27 

if they had been united with fixed principles and civil 
courage, might have made him the foremost man of his 
age. These days, we are told, passed pleasantly; and we 
can easily believe it. For Addison was a delightful com- 
panion when he was at his ease ; and the Duke, though he 5 
seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, had the invaluable art 
of putting at ease all who came near him. 

Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to 
the sculptures in the Museum, which he preferred even to 
those of the Vatican. He then pursued his journey 10 
through a country in which the ravages of the last war 
were still discernible, and in which all men were looking 
forward with dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene had 
already descended from the Rhaatian Alps, to dispute with 
Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy. The faithless ruler 15 
of Savoy was still reckoned among the allies of Louis. 
England had not yet actually declared war against France : 
but Manchester had left Paris; and the negotiations which 
produced the Grand Alliance against the House of Bour- 
bon were in progress. Under such circumstances, it was 20 
desirable for an English traveller to reach neutral ground 
without delay. Addison resolved to cross Mont Cenis. It 
was December; and the road was very different from that 
which now reminds the stranger of the power and genius 
of Napoleon. The winter, however, was mild; and the 25 
passage was, for those times, easy. To this journey Addi- 
son alluded when, in the ode which we have already 
quoted, he said that for him the Divine goodness had 
warmed the hoary Alpine hills. 

It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he com- 30 
posed his Epistle to his friend Montague, now Lord Hali- 
fax. That Epistle, once widely renowned, is now known 
only to curious readers, and will hardly be considered by 
those to whom it is known as in any perceptible degree 
heightening Addison's fame. It is, however, decidedly 35 
superior to any English composition which he had pre- 
viously published. Nay, we think it quite as good as any 
poem in heroic metre which appeared during the interval 



28 MACAULAY 

between the death of Dryden and the publication of the 
"Essay on Criticism." It contains passages as good as 
the second-rate passages of Pope, and would have added 
to the reputation of Parnell or Prior. 
5 But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the 
Epistle, it undoubtedly does honor to the principles and 
spirit of the author. Halifax had now nothing to give. 
He had fallen from power, had been held up to obloquy, 
had been impeached by the House of Commons, and, 

10 though his Peers had dismissed the impeachment, had, as 
it seemed, little chance of ever again filling high office. 
The Epistle, written at such a time, is one among many 
proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice or mean- 
ness in the suavity and moderation which distinguished 

15 Addison from all the other public men of those stormy 
times. 

At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial change 
of ministry had taken place in England, and that the Earl 
of Manchester had become Secretary of State. Manches- 

20 ter exerted himself to serve his young friend. It was 
thought advisable that an English agent should be near 
the person of Eugene in Italy; and Addison, whose diplo- 
matic education was now finished, was the man selected. 
He was preparing to enter on his honorable functions, 

25 when all his prospects were for a time darkened by the 
death of William the Third. 

Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, political, 
and religious, to the Whig party. That aversion appeared 
in the first measures of her reign. Manchester was de- 

30 prived of the seals, after he had held them only a few 
weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax was sworn of the 
Privy Council. Addison shared the fate of his three 
patrons. His hopes of employment in the public service 
were at an end; his pension was stopped; and it was 

35 necessary for him to support himself by his own exer- 
tions. He became tutor to a young English traveller, and 
appears to have rambled with his pupil over great part 
of Switzerland and Germany. At this time he wrote his 



-THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 29 

pleasing treatise on "Medals." It was not published till 
after his death; bnt several distinguished scholars saw the 
manuscript, and gave just praise to the grace of the style, 
and to the learning and ingenuity evinced by the quota- 
tions. 5 

From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, where he 
learned the melancholy news of his father's death. After 
passing some months in the United Provinces, he re- 
turned about the close of the year 1703 to England. He 
was there cordially received by his friends, and intro- 10 
duced by them into the Kit Cat Club, a society in which 
were collected all the various talents and accomplishments 
which then gave lustre to the Whig party. 

Addison was, during some months after his return from 
the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But 15 
it was soon in the power of his noble patrons to serve him 
effectually. A political change, silent and gradual, but 
of the highest importance, was in daily progress. The 
accession of Anne had been hailed by the Tories with 
transports of joy and hope ; and for a time it seemed that 20 
the Whigs had fallen never to rise again. The throne 
was surrounded by men supposed to be attached to the 
prerogative and to the Church; and among these none 
stood as high in the favor of the Sovereign as the Lord 
Treasurer Godolphin and the Captain General Marl- 25 
borough. 

The country gentlemen and country clergymen had fully 
expected that the policy of these ministers would be 
directly opposed to that which had been almost constantly 
followed by William; that the landed interest would be 30 
favored at the expense of trade; that no addition would 
be made to the funded debt; that the privileges conceded 
to Dissenters by the late King would be curtailed, if not 
withdrawn; that the war with France, if there must be 
such a war, would, on our part, be almost entirely naval; 35 
and that the Government would avoid close connections 
with foreign powers, and, above all, with Holland. 

But the country gentlemen and country clergymen were 



30 MACAULAY 

fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The preju- 
dices and passions which raged without control in vicar- 
ages, in cathedral closes, and in the manor-houses of fox- 
hunting squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the Min- 
5 istry. Those statesmen saw that it was both for the public 
interest, and for their own interest, to adopt a Whig 
policy, at least as respected the alliances of the country 
and the conduct of the war. But, if the foreign policy of 
the Whigs were adopted, it was impossible to abstain 

10 from adopting also their financial policy. The natural 
consequences followed. The rigid Tories were alienated 
from the Government. The votes of the Whigs became 
necessary to it. The votes of the Whigs could be secured 
only by further concessions; and further concessions the 

15 Queen was induced to make. 

At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties 
bore a close analogy to the state of parties in 1826. In 
1826, as in 1704, there was a Tory Ministry divided into 
two hostile sections. The position of Mr. Canning and 

20 his friends in 1826 corresponded to that which Marl- 
borough and Godolphin occupied in 1704. Nottingham 
and Jersey were, in 1704, what Lord Eldon and Lord 
Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 were in 
a situation resembling that in which the Whigs of 1826 

25 stood. In 1704, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, 
were not in office. There was no avowed coalition be- 
tween them and the modern Tories. It is probable that 
no direct communication tending to such a coalition had 
yet taken place; yet all men saw that such a coalition 

30 was inevitable, nay, that it was already half formed. 
Such, or nearly such, was the state of things when tidings 
arrived of the great battle fought at Blenheim on the 
13th August, 1704. By the Whigs the news was hailed 
with transports of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of 

35 quarrel, could be remembered by them against the Com- 
mander whose genius had, in one day, changed the face of 
Europe, saved the Imperial throne, humbled the House of 
Bourbon, and secured the Act of Settlement against for- 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 31 

eign hostility. The feeling of the Tories was very dif- 
ferent. They could not indeed, without imprudence, 
openly express regret at an event so glorious to their 
country; but their congratulations were so cold and sullen 
as to give deep disgust to the victorious general and his 5 
friends. 

Grodolphin was not a reading man. Whatever time he 
could spare from business he was in the habit of spending 
at Newmarket or at the card table. But he was not abso- 
lutely indifferent to poetry; and he was too intelligent an 10 
observer not to perceive that literature was a formidable 
engine of political warfare, and that the great Whig lead- 
ers had strengthened their party, and raised their char- 
acter, by extending a liberal and judicious patronage to 
good writers. He was mortified, and not without reason, 15 
by the exceeding badness of the poems which appeared in 
honor of the battle of Blenheim. One of these poems has 
been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of 
three lines. 

i ' Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 20 

And each man mounted on his capering beast; 
Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals. ' ' 

Where to procure better verses the Treasurer did not 
know. He understood how to negotiate a loan, or remit a 
subsidy; he was also well versed in the history of running 25 
horses and fighting cocks; but his acquaintance among the 
poets was very small. He consulted Halifax ; but Halifax 
affected to decline the office of adviser. He had, he said, 
done his best, when he had power, to encourage men whose 
abilities and acquirements might do honor to their country. 30 
Those times were over. Other maxims had prevailed. 
Merit was suffered to pine in obscurity; and the public 
money was squandered on the undeserving. "I do know," 
he added, "a gentleman who would celebrate the battle in 
a manner worthy of the subject ; but I will not name him." 35 
Godolphin, who was expert at the soft answer which turn- 



32 MACAULAY 

eth away wrath, and who was under the necessity of pay- 
ing court to the Whigs, gently replied that there was too 
much ground for Halifax's complaints, but that what was 
amiss should in time be rectified, and that in the mean- 
5 time the services of a man such as Halifax had described 
should be liberally rewarded. Halifax then mentioned Ad- 
dison, but, mindful of the dignity as well as of the pecuniary 
interest of his friend, insisted that the Minister should 
apply in the most courteous manner to Addison himself; 

10 and this Godolphin promised to do. 

Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of stairs, 
over a small shop in the Haymarket. In this humble 
lodging he was surprised, on the morning which followed 
the conversation between Godolphin and Halifax, by a 

15 visit from no less a person than the Right Honorable 
Henry Boyle, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
afterwards Lord Carleton. This high-born minister had 
been sent by the Lord Treasurer as ambassador to the 
needy poet. Addison readily undertook the proposed 

20 task, a task which, to so good a Whig, was probably a 
pleasure. When the poem was little more than half fin- 
ished, he showed it to Godolphin, who was delighted with 
it, and particularly with the famous similitude of the 
Angel. Addison was instantly appointed to a commis- 

25 sionership worth about two hundred pounds a year, and 
was assured that this appointment was only an earnest of 
greater favors. 

The "Campaign" came forth, and was as much admired 
by the public as by the Minister. It pleases us less on 

30 the whole than the Epistle to Halifax. Yet it undoubt- 
edly ranks high among the poems which appeared during 
the interval between the death of Dryden and the dawn 
of Pope's genius. The chief merit of the "Campaign," 
we think, is that which was noticed by Johnson, the manly 

35 and rational rejection of fiction. The first great poet 
whose works have come down to us sang of war long 
before war became a science or a trade. If, in his time, 
there was enmity between two little Greek towns, each 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 33 

poured forth its crowd of citizens, ignorant of discipline, 
and armed with implements of labor rudely turned into 
weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few 
chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them to procure good 
armor, horses, and chariots, and whose leisure had enabled 5 
them to practise military exercises. One such chief, if he 
were a man of great strength, agility, and courage, would 
probably be more formidable than twenty common men ; 
and the force and dexterity with which he flung his spear 
might have no inconsiderable share in deciding the event of JO 
the day. Such were probably the battles with which 
Homer was familiar. But Homer related the actions of 
men of a former generation, of men who sprang from the 
Gods, and communed with the Gods face to face, of men, 
one of whom could with ease hurl rocks which two sturdy 15 
hinds of a later period would be unable even to lift. He 
therefore naturally represented their martial exploits as 
resembling in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, those 
of the stoutest and most expert combatants of his own 
age. Achilles, clad in celestial armor, drawn by celestial 20 
coursers, grasping the spear which none but himself could 
raise, driving all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking 
Scamander with dead, was only a magnificent exaggeration 
of the real hero, who, strong, fearless, accustomed to the 
use of weapons, guarded by a shield and helmet of the 2 & 
best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by horses of 
Thessalian breed, struck down with his own right arm 
foe after foe. In all rude societies similar notions are 
found. There are at this day countries where the Life- 
guardsman Shaw would be considered as a much greater 30 
warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Bonaparte loved 
to describe the astonishment with which the Mamelukes 
looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad Bey, distin- 
guished above all his fellows by his bodily strength, and 
by the skill with which he managed his horse and his 35 
sabre, could not believe that a man who was scarcely five 
feet high, and rode like a butcher, could be the greatest 
soldier in Europe. 



34 MACAULAY 

Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much truth 
as poetry requires. But truth was altogether wanting to 
the performances of those who, writing about battles 
which had scarcely anything in common with the battles of 
5 his times, servilely imitated his manner. The folly of 
Silius Italicus, in particular, is positively nauseous. He 
undertook to record in verse the vicissitudes of a great 
struggle between generals of the first order: and his nar- 
rative is made up of the hideous wounds which these 

10 generals inflicted with their own hands. Asdrubal flings 
a spear which grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero; 
but Nero sends his spear into AsdrubaPs side. Fabius 
slays Thuris and Butes and Maris and Arses, and the 
long-haired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and Sapha- 

15 rus and Monsesus, and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal 
runs Perusinus through the groin with a stake, and breaks 
the backbone of Telesinus with a huge stone. This de- 
testable fashion was copied in modern times, and con- 
tinued to prevail down to the age of Addison. Several 

20 versifiers had described William turning thousands to 
flight by his single prowess, and dyeing the Boyne with 
Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as John Philips, 
the author of the "Splendid Shilling," represented Marl- 
borough as having won the battle of Blenheim merely by 

25 strength of muscle and skill in fence. The following lines 
may serve as an example : 

" Churchill, viewing where 
The violence of Tallard most prevailed, 
Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 

30 Precipitate he rode, urging his way 

O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 
Boiling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 
Attends his furious course. Around his head 
The glowing balls play innocent, while he 

35 With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 

Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 
He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground 
With headless ranks. What can they do? Or how 
Withstand his wide-destroying sword?" 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 35 

Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed from 
this ridiculous fashion. He reserved his praise for the 
qualities which made Marlborough truly great, energy, 
sagacity, military science. But, above all, the poet ex- 
tolled the firmness of that mind which, in the midst of 5 
confusion, uproar, and slaughter, , examined and disposed 
every thing with the serene wisdom of a higher intelli- 
gence. 

Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison 
of Marlborough to an Angel guiding the whirlwind. We 10 
will not dispute the general justice of Johnson's remarks 
on this passage. But we must point out one circumstance 
which appears to have escaped all the critics. The extra- 
ordinary effect which this simile produced when it first 
appeared, and which to the following generation seemed 15 
inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attributed to a line 
which most readers now regard as a feeble parenthesis, 



' ' Such as, of late, o 'er pale Britannia pass 



'd. 



Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The 
great tempest of November, 1703, the only tempest which 20 
in our latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical hurri- 
cane, had left a dreadful recollection in the minds of all 
men. No other tempest was ever in this country the occa- 
sion of a parliamentary address or of a public fast. 
Whole fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had 25 
been blown down. One Prelate had been buried beneath 
the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had pre- 
sented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds 
of families were still in mourning. The prostrate trunks 
of large trees, and the ruins of houses, still attested, in 30 
all the southern counties, the fury of the blast. The 
popularity which the simile of the angel enjoyed among 
Addison's contemporaries has always seemed to us to be 
a remarkable instance of the advantage which, in rhetoric 
and poetry, the particular has over the general. 35 

Soon after the "Campaign," was published Addison's 
Narrative of his Travels in Italy. The first effect pro- 



36 MACAULAY 

duced by this Narrative was disappointment. The crowd 
of readers who expected politics and scandal, speculations 
on the projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes about 
the jollities of convents and the amours of cardinals and 
5 nuns, were confounded by finding that the writer's mind 
was much more occupied by the war between the Trojans 
and Rutulians than by the war between France and Aus- 
tria; and that he seemed to have heard no scandal of 
later date than the gallantries of the Empress Faustina. 

io In time, however, the judgment of the many was over- 
ruled by that of the few; and, before the book was re- 
printed, it was so eagerly sought that it sold for five times 
the original price. It is still read with pleasure : the style 
is pure and flowing; the classical quotations and allu- 

15 sions are numerous and happy; and we are now and then 
charmed by that singularly humane and delicate humor in 
which Addison excelled all men. Yet this agreeable work, 
even when considered merely as the history of a literary 
tour, may justly be censured on account of its faults of 

20 omission. We have already said that, though rich in ex- 
tracts from the Latin poets, it contains scarcely any refer- 
ences to the Latin orators and historians. We must add 
that it contains little, or rather no information, respecting 
the historjr and literature of modern Italy. To the best 

25 of our remembrance, Addison does not mention Dante, 
Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, Lorenzo de' Medici, 
or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us, that at Ferrara he saw 
the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice he heard the 
gondoliers sing verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and 

30 Ariosto he cared far less than for Valerius Flaccus and 
Sidonius Apollinaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin brings 
a line of Silius to his mind. The sulphurous steam of 
Albula suggests to him several passages of Martial. But 
he has not a word to say of the illustrious dead of Santa 

35 Croce; he crosses the wood of Ravenna without recollect- 
ing the Spectre Huntsman, and wanders up and down 
Rimini without one thought of Francesca. At Paris, he 
had eagerly sought an introduction to Boileau; but he 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 37 

seems not to have been at all aware that at Florence he 
was in the vicinity of a poet with whom Boileau could 
not sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of 
modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more re- 
markable, because Filicaja was the favorite poet of the 5 
accomplished Somers, under whose protection Addison 
travelled, and to whom the account of the Travels is dedi- 
cated. The truth is, that Addison knew little, and cared 
less, about the literature of modern Italy. His favorite 
models were Latin. His favorite critics were French. 10 
Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read seemed to him 
monstrous, and the other half tawdry. 

His Travels were followed by the lively opera of "Rosa- 
mond." This piece was ill set to music, and therefore 
failed on the stage, but it completely succeeded in print, 15 
and is indeed excellent in its kind. The smoothness with 
which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which they 
bound, is, to our ears at least, very pleasing. We are 
inclined to think that if Addison had left heroic couplets 
to Pope, and blank verse to Rowe, and had employed 20 
himself in writing airy and spirited songs, his reputation 
as a poet would have stood far higher than it now does. 
Some years after his death, "Rosamond" was set to new 
music by Doctor Arne; and was performed with com- 
plete success. Several passages long retained their popu- 25 
larity, and were daily sung, during the latter part of 
George the Second's reign, at all the harpsichords in Eng- 
land. 

While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and 
the prospects of his party, were constantly becoming 30 
brighter and brighter. In the spring of 1705, the ministers 
were freed from the restraint imposed by a House of 
Commons, in which Tories of the most perverse class had 
the ascendency. The elections were favorable to the 
Whigs. The coalition which had been tacitly and gradually 35 
formed was now openly avowed. The Great Seal was 
given to Cowper. Somers and Halifax were sworn of the 
Council. Halifax was sent in the following year to carry 



38 MACAULAY 

the decoration of the Order of the Garter to the Elec- 
toral Prince of Hanover, and was accompanied on this 
honorable mission by Addison, who had just been made 
Under Secretary of State. The Secretary of State under 
5 whom Addison first served was Sir Charles Hedges, a 
Tory. But Hedges was soon dismissed to make room for 
the most vehement of Whigs, Charles, Earl of Sunder- 
land. In every department of the -state, indeed, the High 
Churchmen were compelled to give place to their oppo- 

10 nents. At the close of 1707, the Tories who still re- 
mained in office strove to rally, with Harley at their head. 
But the attempt, though favored by the Queen, who had 
always been a Tory at heart, and who had now quarrelled 
with the Duchess of Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The 

15 time was not yet. The Captain General was at the height 
of popularity and glory. The Low Church party had a 
majority in Parliament. The country squires and rectors, 
though occasionally uttering a savage growl, were for the 
most part in a state of torpor, which lasted till they were 

20 roused into activity, and indeed into madness, by the 
prosecution of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents 
were compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was 
complete. At the general election of 1708, their strength 
in the House of Commons became irresistible ; and, before 

25 the end of that year, Somers was made Lord President of 
the Council, and Wharton Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 

Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Commons 
which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons 
was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his nature 

30 made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once 
rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after 
remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great 
writer should fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will 
think it strange that Addison's failure as a speaker should 

35 have had no unfavorable effect on his success as a politi- 
cian. In our time, a man of high rank and great fortune 
might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a 
considerable post. But it would now be inconceivable 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 39 

that a mere adventurer, a man who, when out of office, 
must live by his pen, should in a few years become suc- 
cessively Under Secretary of State, Chief Secretary for 
Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some oratorical 
talent. Addison, without high birth, and with little prop- 5 
erty, rose to a post which Dukes, the heads of the great 
houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, have thought it 
an honor to fill. Without opening his lips in debate, he 
rose to a post, the highest that Chatham or Fox ever 
reached. And this he did before he had been nine years 10 
in Parliament. We must look for the explanation of this 
seeming miracle to the peculiar circumstances in which 
that generation was placed. During the interval which 
elapsed between the time when the censorship of the press 
ceased, and the time when parliamentary proceedings began 15 
to be freely reported, literary talents were, to a public man, 
of much more importance, and oratorical talents of much 
less importance, than in our time. At present, the best 
way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or an 
argument is to introduce that fact or argument into a 20 
speech made in Parliament. If a political tract were to 
appear superior to the Conduct of the Allies, or to the 
best numbers of the "Freeholder," the circulation of such 
a tract would be languid indeed when compared with the 
circulation of every remarkable word uttered in the delib- 25 
erations of the legislature. A speech made in the House 
of Commons at four in the morning is on thirty thousand 
tables before ten. A speech made on the Monday is read 
on the Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and Aber- 
deenshire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand 30 
writer, has to a great extent superseded the pamphleteer. 
It was not so in the reign of Anne. The best speech could 
then produce no effect except on those who heard it. It 
was only by means of the press that the opinion of the 
public without doors could be influenced; and the opinion 35 
of the public without doors could not but be of the highest 
importance in a country governed by parliaments, and in- 
deed at that time governed by triennial parliaments. The 



40 MACAULAY 

pen was therefore a more formidable political engine than 
the tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended only in Par- 
liament. But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of 
an earlier period, had not done half of what was neces- 
5 sary, when they sat down amidst the acclamations of the 
House of Commons. They had still to plead their cause 
before the country, and this they could do only by means 
of the press* Their works are now forgotten. But it is 
certain that there were in Grub Street few more assiduous 

10 scribblers of Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Remarks, than 
these two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney, when leader 
of the Opposition, and possessed of thirty thousand a 
year, edited the "Craftsman." Walpole, though not a 
man of literary habits, was the author of at least ten 

15 pamphlets, and retouched and corrected many more. 
These facts sufficiently show of how great importance 
literary assistance then was to the contending parties. St. 
John was, certainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory 
speaker; Cowper was probably the best Whig speaker. 

20 But it may well be doubted whether St. John did so much 
for the Tories as Swift, and whether Cowper did so much 
for the Whigs as Addison. When these things are duly 
considered, it will not be thought strange that Addison 
should have climbed higher in the state than any other 

25 Englishman has ever, by means merely of literary talents, 
been able to climb. Swift would, in all probability, have 
climbed as high, if he had not been encumbered by his 
cassock and his pudding sleeves. As far as the homage 
of the great went, Swift had as much of it as if he had 

30 been Lord Treasurer. 

To the influence which Addison derived from his literary 
talents was added all the influence which arises from char- 
acter. The world, always ready to think the worst of 
needy political adventurers, was forced to make one ex- 

35 ception. Restlessness, violence, audacity, laxity of prin- 
ciple, are the vices ordinarily attributed to that class of 
men. But faction itself could not deny that Addison had, 
through all changes of fortune, been strictly faithful to 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 41 

his early opinions, and to his early friends; that his in- 
tegrity was without stain ; that his whole deportment indi- 
cated a fine sense of the becoming ; that, in the utmost heat 
of controversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for 
truth, humanity, and social decorum ; that no outrage could 5 
ever provoke him to retaliation unworthy of a Christian 
and a gentleman; and that his only faults were a too 
sensitive delicacy, and a modesty which amounted to bash- 
fulness. 

He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of 10 
his time ; and much of his popularity he owed, we believe, 
to' that very timidity which his friends lamented. That 
timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his talents 
to the best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It 
averted that envy which would otherwise have been ex- 15 
cited by fame so splendid, and by so rapid an elevation. 
No man is so great a favorite with the public as he who 
is at once an object of admiration, of respect, and of pity ; 
and such were the feelings which Addison inspired. Those 
who enjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar conver- 20 
sation, declared with one voice that it was superior even 
to his writings. The brilliant Mary Montague said, that 
she had known all the wits, and that Addison was the best 
company in the world. The malignant Pope was forced to 
own that there was a charm in Addison's talk which could 25 
be found nowhere else. Swift, when burning with ani- 
mosity against the Whigs, could not but confess to Stella 
that, after all, he had never known any associate so agree- 
able as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively con- 
versation, said, that the conversation of Addison was at 30 
once the most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be 
imagined; that it was Terence and Catullus in one, height- 
ened by an exquisite something which was neither Terence 
nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, an excellent 
judge of serious conversation, said, that when Addison 35 
was at his ease, he went on in a noble strain of thought 
and language, so as to chain the attention of every hearer. 
Nor were Addison's great colloquial powers more admir- 



42 MACAULAY 

able than the courtesy and softness of heart which ap- 
peared in his conversation. At the same time, it would 
be too much to say that he was wholly devoid of the 
malice which is, perhaps, inseparable from a keen sense 

5 of the ludicrous. He had one habit which both Swift and 
Stella applauded, and which we hardly know how to 
blame. If his first attempts to set a presuming dunce 
right were ill received, he changed his tone, "assented with 
civil leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and 

10 deeper into absurdity. That such was his practice we 
should, we think, have guessed from his works. The 
"Tatler's" criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, and the 
"Spectatpr's" dialogue with the politician who is so zealous 
for the honor of Lady Q — p — t — s, are excellent speci- 

15 mens of this innocent mischief. 

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But his 
rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. 
As soon as he entered a large company, as soon as he saw 
an unknown face, his lips were sealed, and his manners 

20 became constrained. None who met him only in great 
assemblies would have been able to believe that he was the 
same man who had often kept a few friends listening and 
laughing round a table, from the time when the play 
ended, till the clock of St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck 

25 four. Yet, even at such a table, he was not seen to the best 
advantage. To enjoy his conversation in the highest per- 
fection, it was necessary to be alone with him, and to hear 
him, in his own phrase, think aloud. "There is no such 
thing," he used to say, "as real conversation, but between 

30 two persons." 

This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful nor 
unamiable, led Addison into the two most serious faults 
which can with justice be imputed to him. He found that 
wine broke the spell which lay on his fine intellect, and 

35 was therefore too easily seduced into convivial excess. 
Such excess was in that age regarded, even by grave men, 
as the most venial of all peccadilloes, and was so far from 
being a mark of ill-breeding that it was almost essential 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 43 

to the character of a fine gentleman. But the smallest 
speck is seen on a white ground; and almost all the biog- 
raphers of Addison have said something about this fail- 
ing. Of any other statesman or writer of Queen Anne's 
reign, we should no more think of saying that he some- 5 
times took too much wine, than that he wore a long wig 
and a sword. 

To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature, we must 
ascribe another fault which generally arises from a very 
different cause. He became a little too fond of seeing 10 
himself surrounded by a small circle of admirers, to whom 
he was as a King or rather as a God. All these men were 
far inferior to him in ability, and some of them had very 
serious faults. Nor did those faults escape his observa- 
tion ; for, if ever there was an eye which saw through and 15 
through men, it was the eye of Addison. But, with the 
keenest observation, and the finest sense of the ridiculous, 
he had a large charity. The feeling with which he looked 
on most of his humble companions was one of benevo- 
lence, slightly tinctured with contempt. He was at per- 20 
feet ease in their company; he was grateful for their de- 
voted attachment ; and he loaded them with benefits. Their 
veneration for him appears to have exceeded that with 
which Johnson was regarded by Boswell, or Warburton 
by Hurd. It was not in the power of adulation to turn 25 
such a head, or deprave such a heart, as Addison's. But 
it must in candor be admitted that he contracted some of 
the faults which can scarcely be avoided by any person 
who is so unfortunate as to be the oracle of a small lit- 
erary coterie. 30 

One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, 
a young Templar of some literature, and a distant relation 
of Addison. There was at this time no stain on the char- 
acter of Budgell, and it is not improbable that his career 
would have been prosperous and honorable, if the life of 35 
his cousin had been prolonged. But, when the master was 
laid in the grave, the disciple broke loose from all re- 
straint, descended rapidly from one degree of vice and 



44 MACAULAY 

misery to another, ruined his fortune by follies, attempted 
to repair it by crimes, and at length closed a wicked and un- 
happy life by self-murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched 
man, gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, re- 
5 tained his affection and veneration for Addison, and 
recorded those feelings in the last lines which he traced 
before he hid himself from infamy under London Bridge. 
Another of Addison's favorite companions was Am- 
brose Phillipps, a good Whig and a middling poet, who 

10 had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of com- 
position which has been called, after his name, Namby 
Pamby. But the most remarkable members of the little 
senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, were Richard 
Steele and Thomas Tickell. 

15 Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had 
been together at the Charter House and at Oxford; but 
circumstances had then, for a time, separated them widely. 
Steele had left college without taking a degree, had been 
disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had 

20 served in the army, had tried to find the philosopher's 
stone, and had written a religious treatise and several 
comedies. He was one of those people whom it is impos- 
sible either to hate or to respect. His temper was sweet, 
his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, 

25 and his principles weak. His life was spent in sinning* 
and repenting; in inculcating what was right, and doing 
what was wrong. In speculation, he was a man of piety 
and honor ; in practice he was much of the rake and a little 
of the swindler. He was, however, so good-natured that 

30 it was not easy to be seriously angry with him, and that 
even rigid moralists felt more inclined to pity than to 
blame him, when he diced himself into a spunging house 
or drank himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele 
with kindness not unmingled with scorn, tried, with little 

35 success, to keep him out of scrapes, introduced him to the 
great, procured a good place for him, corrected his plays, 
and, though by no means rich, lent him large sums of 
money. One of these loans appears, from a letter dated 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 45 

in August, 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. 
These pecuniary transactions probably led to frequent 
bickering's. It is said that, on one occasion, Steele's negli- 
gence, or dishonesty, provoked Addison to repay himself 
by the help of a bailiff. We cannot join with Miss Aikin 5 
in rejecting this story. Johnson heard it from Savage, 
who heard it from Steele. Few private transactions which 
took place a hundred and twenty years ago are proved by 
stronger evidence than this. But we can by no means 
agree with those who condemn Addison's severity. The 10 
most amiable of mankind may well be moved to indigna- 
tion, when what he has earned hardly, and lent with great 
inconvenience to himself, for the purpose of relieving a 
*friend in distress, is squandered with insane profusion. 
We will illustrate our meaning by an example, which is 15 
not the less striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr. 
Harrison, in Fielding's "Amelia," is represented as the 
most benevolent of human beings; yet he takes in execu- 
tion, not only the goods, but the person of his friend 
Booflh. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure be- 20 
cause he has been informed that Booth, while pleading 
poverty as an excuse for not paying just debts, has been 
buying fine jewellery, and setting up a coach. No person 
who is well acquainted with Steele's life and correspond- 
ence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill to Addison as 25 
Booth was accused of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The 
real history, we have little doubt, was something like 
this:— A letter comes to Addison, imploring help in pa- 
thetic terms, and promising reformation and speedy re- 
payment. Poor Dick declares that he has not an inch of 30 
candle, or a bushel of coals, or eredit with the butcher for 
a shoulder of mutton. Addison is moved. He determines 
to deny himself some medals which are wanting to his 
series of the Twelve Caesars; to put off buying the new 
edition of Bayle's Dictionary; and to wear his old sword 35 
and buckles another year. In this way he manages to 
send a hundred pounds to his friend. The next day he 
calls on Steele, and finds scores of gentlemen and ladies 



46 MACAULAY 

assembled. The fiddles are playing. The table is groan- 
ing under Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of sweet- 
meats. Is it strange that a man whose kindness is thus 
abused, should send sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due 
5 to him? 

Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had 
introduced himself to public notice by writing a most 
ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of the opera 
of "Rosamond." He deserved, and at length attained, the 

10 first place in Addison's friendship. For a time Steele and 
Tickell were on good terms. But they loved Addison too 
much to love each other, and at length became as bitter 
enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil. 

At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord Lieutenant 

15 of Ireland, and appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Ad- 
dison was consequently under the necessity of quitting 
London for Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, 
which was then worth about two thousand pounds a year, 
he obtained a patent appointing him keeper of the Irish 

20 Records for life, with a salary of three or four hundred 
a year. Budgell accompanied his cousin in the capacity 
of private secretary. 

Wharton and Addison had nothing in common but 
Whiggism. The Lord Lieutenant was not only licentious 

25 and corrupt, but was distinguished from other libertines 
and jobbers by a callous impudence which presented the 
strongest contrast to the Secretary's gentleness and deli- 
cacy. Many parts of the Irish administration at this 
time appear to have deserved serious blame. But against 

30 Addison there was not a murmur. He long afterwards as- 
serted, what all the evidence which we have ever seen tends 
to prove, that his diligence and integrity gained the friend- 
ship of all the most considerable persons in Ireland. 

The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, 

35 we think, wholly escaped the notice of all his biographers. 
He was elected member for the borough of Cavan in the 
summer of 1709; and in the journals of two sessions his 
name frequently occurs. Some of the entries appear to 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 47 

indicate that he so far overcame his timidity as to make 
speeches. Nor is this by any means improbable; for the 
Irish House of Commons was a far less formidable audi- 
ence than the English House; and many tongues which 
were tied by fear in the greater assembly became fluent in 5 
the smaller. Gerard Hamilton, for example, who, from 
fear of losing the fame gained by his "single speech," sat 
mute at Westminster during forty years, spoke with great 
effect at Dublin when he was Secretary to Lord Halifax. 

While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to 10 
which he owes his high and permanent rank among British 
writers. As yet his fame rested on performances which, 
though highly respectable, were not built for duration, 
and which would, if he had produced nothing else, have 
now been almost forgotten, on some excellent Latin verses, 15 
on some English verses which occasionally rose above 
mediocrity, and on a book of travels, agreeably written, but 
not indicating any extraordinary powers of mind. These 
works showed him to be a man of taste, sense, and learn- 
ing. The time had come when he was to prove himself a 20 
man of genius, and to enrich our literature with composi- 
tions which will live as long as the English language. 

In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary project, 
of which he was far indeed from foreseeing the conse- 
quences. Periodical papers had during many years been 25 
published in London. Most of these were political; but 
in some of them questions of morality, taste, and love 
casuistry had been discussed. The literary merit of these 
works was small indeed; and even their names are now 
known only to the curious. 30 

Steele had been appointed Gazetteer by Sunderland, at 
the request, it is said, of Addison, and thus had access to 
foreign intelligence earlier and more authentic than was 
in those times within the reach of an ordinary newswriter. 
This circumstance seems to have suggested to him the 35 
scheme of publishing a periodical paper on a new plan. 
It was to appear on the days on which the post left Lon- 
don for the country, which were, in that generation, the 



48 MACAULAY 

Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It was to contain 
the foreign news, accounts of theatrical representations, 
and the literary gossip of Will's and of the Grecian. It 
was also to contain remarks on the fashionable topics of 
5 the day, compliments to beauties, pasquinades on noted 
sharpers, and criticisms on popular preachers. The aim 
of Steele does not appear to have been at first higher than 
this. He was not ill qualified to conduct the work which 
he had planned. His public intelligence he drew from the 

10 best sources. He knew the town, and had paid dear for 
his knowledge. He had read much more than the dissi- 
pated men of that time were in the habit of reading. He 
was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. 
His style was easy and not incorrect; and though his wit 

15 and humor were of no high order, his gay animal spirits 
imparted to his compositions an air of vivacity which or- 
dinary readers could hardly distinguish from comic genius. 
His writings have been well compared to those light wines 
which, though deficient in body and flavor, are yet a pleas- 

20 ant small drink, if not kept too long, or carried too far. 
Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imag- 
inary person, almost as well known in that age as Mr. 
Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift had 
assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet 

25 against Partridge, the maker of almanacs. Partridge had 
been fool enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff 
had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more diverting 
than the first. All the wits had combined to keep up the 
joke, and the town was long in convulsions of laughter. 

30 Steele determined to employ the name which this con- 
troversy had made popular; and, in 1709, it was an- 
nounced that Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was 
about to publish a paper called the "Tatler." 

Addison had not been consulted about this scheme; but 

35 as soon as he heard of it, he determined to give his assist- 
ance. The effect of that assistance cannot be better de- 
scribed than in Steele's own words. "I fared," he said, 
"like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbor 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 49 

to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had 
once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence 
on him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, "was advanced 
indeed. It was raised to a greater thing than I intended 
it." 5 

It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. 
George's Channel his first contributions to the "Tatler," 
had no notion of the extent and variety of his own 
powers. He was the possessor of a vast mine, rich with 
a hundred ores. But he had been acquainted only with 10 
the least precious part of his treasures, and had hitherto 
contented himself with producing sometimes copper and 
sometimes lead, intermingled with a little silver. All at 
once, and by mere accident, he had lighted on an inex- 
haustible vein of the finest gold. 15 

The mere choice and arrangement of his words would 
have sufficed to make his essays classical. For never, not 
even by Dryden, not even by Temple, had the English 
language been written with such sweetness, grace, and 
facility. But this was the smallest part of Addison's 20 
praise. Had he clothed his thoughts in the half French 
style of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin style of Dr. 
Johnson, or in the half German jargon of the present day, 
his genius would have triumphed over all faults of man- 
ner. As a moral satirist he stands unrivalled. If ever 25 
the best "Tatlers" and "Spectators" were equalled in their 
own kind, we should be inclined to guess that it must 
have been by the lost comedies of Menander. 

In wit, properly so called, Addison was not inferior to 
Cowley or Butler. No single ode of Cowley contains so 30 
many happy analogies as are crowded into the lines to Sir 
Godfrey Kneller; and we would undertake to collect from 
the "Spectators" as great a number of ingenious illustra- 
tions as can be found in "Hudibras." The still higher 
faculty of invention Addison possessed in still larger 35 
measure. The numerous fictions, generally original, often 
wild and grotesque, but always singularly graceful and 
happy, which are found in his essays, fully entitle him to 



50 MACAULAY 

the rank of a great poet, a rank to which his metrical 
compositions give him no claim. As an observer of life, 
of manners, of all the shades of human character, he 
stands in the first class. And what he observed he had 
5 the art of communicating in two widely different ways. 
He could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims, as well as 
Clarendon. But he could do something better. He could 
call human beings into existence, and make them exhibit 
themselves. If we wish to find anything more vivid than 

10 Addison's best portraits, we must go either to Shakespeare 
or to Cervantes. 

But what shall we say of Addison's humor, of his sense 
of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that sense in 
others, and of drawing mirth from incidents which occur 

15 every day, and from little peculiarities of temper and 
manner, such as may be found in every man? We feel 
the charm; we give ourselves up to it; but we strive in 
vain to analyze it. 

Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's peculiar 

20 pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry of some 
other great satirists. The three most emhient masters of 
the art of ridicule, during the eighteenth century, were, 
we conceive, Addison, Swift, and Voltaire. Which of the 
three had the greatest power of moving laughter may be 

25 questioned. But each of them, within his own domain, 
was supreme. 

Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment is 
without disguise or restraint. He gambols; he grins; he 
shakes his sides; he points the finger; he turns up the 

30 nose; he shoots out the tongue. The manner of Swift is 
the very opposite to this. He moves laughter, but never 
joins in it. He appears in his works such as he ap- 
peared in society. All the company are convulsed with 
merriment, while the Dean, the author of all the mirth, 

35 preserves an invincible gravity, and even sourness of as- 
pect, and gives utterance to the most eccentric and ludi- 
crous fancies, with the air of a man reading the com- 
mination service. 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 51 

The manner of Addison is as remote from that of Swift 
as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the 
French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a double portion 
of severity into his countenance while laughing inwardly; 
but preserves a look peculiarly his own, a look of demure 5 
serenity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, 
an almost imperceptible elevation of the brow, an almost 
imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone is never that 
either of a Jack Pudding or of a Cynic. It is that of a 
gentleman, in whom the quickest sense of the ridiculous 10 
is constantly tempered by good nature and good breeding. 

We own that the humor of Addison is, in our opinion, 
of a more delicious flavor than the humor of either Swift 
or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is certain, that both 
Swift and Voltaire have been successfully mimicked, and 15 
that no man has yet been able to mimic Addison. The 
letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pansophe is Voltaire all over, 
and imposed, during a long time, on the Academicians of 
Paris. There are passages in Arbuthnot's satirical works 
which we, at least, cannot distinguish from Swift's best 20 
writing. But of the many eminent men who have made 
Addison their model, though several have copied his mere 
diction with happy effect, none has been able to catch the 
tone of his pleasantry. In the "World," in the "Con- 
noisseur," in the "Mirror," in the "Lounger," there are 25 
numerous papers written in obvious imitation of his 
"Tatlers" and "Spectators." Most of those papers have 
some merit; many are very lively and amusing; but there 
is not a single one which could be passed off as Addison's 
on a critic of the smallest perspicacity. 30 

But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from 
Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all the other great 
masters of ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, the moral 
purity, which we find even in his merriment. Severity, 
gradually hardening and darkening into misanthropy, 35 
characterizes the works of Swift. The nature of Voltaire 
was, indeed, not inhuman; but he venerated nothing. 
Neither in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest ex- 



52 MACAULAY 

amples of virtue, neither in the Great First Cause nor in 
the awful enigma of the grave, could he see anything but 
subjects for drollery. The more solemn and august the 
theme, the more monkey-like was his grimacing and chat- 

5 taring. The mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephis- 
topheles; the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. If, 
as Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion of the happi- 
ness of Seraphim and just men made perfect be derived 
from an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, their mirth 

10 must surely be none other than the mirth of Addison; a 
mirth consistent with tender compassion for all that is 
frail, and with profound reverence for all that is sub- 
lime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral duty, 
no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever been 

15 associated by Addison with any degrading idea. His 
humanity is without a parallel in literary history. The 
highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power 
without abusing it. No kind of power is more formidable 
than the power of making men ridiculous ; and that power 

20 Addison possessed in boundless measure. How grossly 
that power was abused by Swift and by Voltaire is well 
known. But of Addison it may be confidently affirmed 
that he has blackened no man's character, nay, that it 
would be difficult, if not impossible, to find in all the 

25 volumes which he has left us a single taunt which can be 
called ungenerous or unkind. Yet he had detractors, 
whose malignity might have seemed to justify as terrible 
a revenge as that which men, not superior to him in 
genius, wreaked on Bettesworth and on Franc de Pom- 

30 pignan. He was a politician; he was the best writer of 
his party; he lived in times of fierce excitement, in times 
when persons erf high character and station stooped to 
scurrility such as is now practised only by the basest of 
mankind. Yet no provocation and no example could in- 

35 duce him to return railing for railing. 

Of the service which his Essays rendered to morality it 
is difficult to speak too highly. It is true that, when the 
"Tatler" appeared, that age of outrageous profaneness 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 53 

and licentiousness which followed the Restoration had 
passed away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres 
into something which, compared with the excesses of 
Etherege and Wycherley, might be called decency. Yet 
there still lingered in the public mind a pernicious notion 5 
that there was some connection between genius and prof- 
ligacy, between the domestic virtues and the sullen formal- 
ity of the Puritans. That error it is the glory of Addison 
to have dispelled. He taught the nation that the faith 
and the morality of Hale and Tillotson might be found in 10 
company with wit more sparkling than the wit of Con- 
greve, and with humor richer than the humor of Van- 
brugh. So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the 
mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, 
that, since his time, the open violation of decency has 15 
always been considered among us as the mark of a fool. 
And this revolution, the greatest and most salutary ever 
effected by any satirist, he accomplished, be it remem- 
bered, without writing one personal lampoon. 

In the early contributions of Addison to the "Tatler" 20 
his peculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet from 
the first, his superiority to all his coadjutors was evident. 
Some of his later "Tatlers" are fully equal to anything 
that he ever wrote. Among the portraits, we most admire 
Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Political Upholsterer. 25 
The proceedings of the Court of Honour, the Thermom- 
eter of Zeal, the story of the Frozen Words, the Memoirs 
of the Shilling, are excellent specimens of that ingenious 
and lively species of fiction in which Addison excelled all 
men. There is one still better paper of the same class. 30 
But though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three years 
ago, was probably thought as edifying as one of Smal- 
ridge's sermons, we dare not indicate it to the squeamish 
readers of the nineteenth century. 

During the session of Parliament which commenced in 35 
November, 1709, and which the impeachment of Sachev- 
erell has made memorable, Addison appears to have re- 
sided in London. The "Tatler" was now more popular 



54 MACAULAY 

than any periodical paper had ever been; and his con- 
nection with it was generally known. It was not known, 
however, that almost everything good in the "Tatler" was 
his. The truth is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which 
5 we owe to him were not merely the best, but so decidedly 
the best that any five of them are more valuable than all 
the two hundred numbers in which he had no share. 

He required, at this time, all the solace which he could 
derive from literary success. The Queen had always dis- 

10 liked the Whigs. She had during some years disliked the 
Marlborough family. But, reigning by a disputed title, 
she could not venture directly to oppose herself to a 
majority of both Houses of Parliament; and, engaged as 
she was in a war on the event of which her own Crown 

15 was staked, she could not venture to disgrace a great and 
successful general. But at length, in the year 1710, the 
causes which had restrained her from showing her aver- 
sion to the Low Church party ceased to operate. The 
trial of Sacheverell produced an outbreak of public feel- 

20 ing scarcely less violent than the outbreaks which we can 
ourselves remember in 1820, and in 1831. The country 
gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rabble of the 
towns, were all, for once, on the same side. It was clear 
that, if a general election took place before the excitement 

25 abated, the Tories would have a majority. The services 
of Marlborough had been so splendid that they were no 
longer necessary. The Queen's throne was secure from 
all attack on the part of Louis. Indeed, it seemed much 
more likely that the English and German armies would 

30 divide the spoils of Versailles and Marli than that a 
Marshal of France would bring back the Pretender to St. 
James's. The Queen, acting by the advice of Harley, de- 
termined to dismiss her servants. In June the change 
commenced. Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories 

35 exulted over his fall. The Whigs tried, during a few 
weeks, to persuade themselves that her Majesty had acted 
only from personal dislike to the Secretary, and that she 
meditated no further alteration. But, early in August, 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 55 

Godolphin was surprised by a letter from Anne, which 
directed him to break his white staff. Even after this 
event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Harley kept up 
the hopes of the Whigs during another month; and then 
the ruin became rapid and violent. The Parliament was 5 
dissolved. The Ministers were turned out. The Tories 
were called to office. The tide of popularity ran violently 
in favor of the High Church party. That party, feeble 
in the late House of Commons, was now irresistible. The 
power which the Tories had thus suddenly acquired, they 10 
used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howl which the 
whole pack set up for prey and for blood appalled even 
him who had roused and unchained them. When, at this 
distance of time, we calmly review the conduct of the dis- 
carded ministers, we cannot but feel a movement of indig- 15 
nation at the injustice with which they were treated. No 
body of men had ever administered the government with 
more energy, ability, and moderation; and their success 
had been proportioned to their wisdom. They had saved 
Holland and Germany. They had humbled France. They 20 
had, as it seemed, all but torn Spain from the House of 
Bourbon. They had made England the first power in 
Europe. At home they had united England and Scotland. 
They had respected the rights of conscience and the lib- 
erty of the subject. They retired, leaving their country 25 
at the height of prosperity and glory. And yet they 
were pursued to their retreat by such a roar of obloquy 
as was never raised against the government which threw 
away thirteen colonies, or against the government which 
sent a gallant army to perish in the ditches of Walcheren. 30 

None of the Whigs suffered more in the general wreck 
than Addison. He had just sustained some heavy pecu- 
niary losses, of the nature of which we are imperfectly 
informed, when his Secretaryship was taken from him. 
He had reason to believe that he should also be deprived 35 
of the small Irish office which he held by patent. He had 
just resigned his Fellowship. It seems probable that he 
had already ventured to raise his eyes to a great lady, and 



56 MACAULAY 

that, while his political friends were in power, and while 
his own fortunes were rising, he had been, in the phrase 
of the romances which were then fashionable, permitted 
to hope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious writer, and Mr. 
5 Addison the chief Secretary, were, in her ladyship's opin- 
ion, two very different persons. All these calamities 
united, however, could not disturb the serene cheerfulness 
of a mind conscious of innocence, and rich in its own 
wealth. He told his friends, with smiling resignation, 

10 that they ought to admire his philosophy, that he had lost 
at once his fortune, his place, his fellowship, and his 
mistress, that he must think of turning tutor again, and 
yet that his spirits were as good as ever. 

He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which his 

is friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was the es- 
teem with which he was regarded that, while the most 
violent measures were taken for the purpose of forcing 
Tory members on Whig corporations, he was returned to 
Parliament without even a contest. Swift, who was now 

20 in London, and who had already determined on quitting 
the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these remarkable words: 
"The Tories carry it among the new members six to one. 
Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undisputed; 
and I believe if he had a mind to be king, he would hardly 

25 be refused." 

The good will with which the Tories regarded Addison 
is the more honorable to him, because it had not been 
purchased by any concession on his part. During the 
general election he published a political journal, entitled 

30 the "Whig Examiner." Of that journal it may be suffi- 
cient to say that Johnson, in spite of his strong political 
prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in wit to any of 
Swift's writings on the other side. When it ceased to ap- 
pear, Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed his exultation 

35 at the death of so formidable an antagonist. "He might 
well rejoice," says Johnson, "at the death of that which he 
could not have killed." "On no occasion," he adds, "was 
the genius of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 57 

none did the superiority of his powers more evidently 
appear." 

The only use which Addison appears to have made of 
the favor with which he was regarded by the Tories was 
to save some of his friends from the general ruin of the 5 
Whig party. He felt himself to be in a situation which 
made it his duty to take a decided part in politics. But 
the case of Steele and of Ambrose Phillipps was different. 
For Phillipps, Addison even condescended to solicit, with 
what success we have not ascertained. Steele held two 10 
places. He was Gazetteer, and he was also a Commissioner 
of Stamps. The Gazette was taken from him. But he was 
suffered to retain his place in the Stamp Office, on an im- 
plied understanding that he should not be active against the 
new government; and he was, during more than two 15 
years, induced by Addison to observe this armistice with 
tolerable fidelity. 

Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon poli- 
tics, and the article of news, which had once formed about 
one third of his paper, altogether disappeared. The "Tat- 20 
ler" had completely changed its character. It was now 
nothing but a series of essays on books, morals, and man- 
ners. Steele therefore resolved to bring it to a close, and 
to commence a new work on an improved plan. It was 
announced that this new work would be published daily. 25 
The undertaking was generally regarded as bold, or rather 
rash; but the event amply justified, the confidence with 
which Steele relied on the fertility of Addison's genius. 
On the second of January, 1711, appeared the last "Tat- 
ler." At the beginning of March following appeared 3a. 
the first of an incomparable series of papers, containing 
observations on life and literature by an imaginary Spec- 
tator. 

The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by 
Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt that the portrait was 3& 
meant to be in some features a likeness of the painter. 
The Spectator is a gentleman who, after passing a stu- 
dious youth at the university, has travelled on classic 



58 MACAULAY 

ground, and has bestowed much attention on curious 
points of antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed his resi- 
dence in London, and has observed all the forms of life 
which are to be found in that great city, has daily listened 

5 to the wits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of 
the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, 
and with the politicians at the St. James's. In the morn- 
ing, he often listens to the hum of the Exchange; in the 
evening, his face is constantly to be seen in the pit of 

10 Drury Lane theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness 
prevents him from opening his mouth, except in a small 
circle of intimate friends. 

These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four of 
the club, the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, and the 

15 merchant, were uninteresting figures, fit only for a back- 
ground. But the other two, an old country baronet and 
an old town rake, though not delineated with a very deli- 
cate pencil, had some good strokes. Addison took the 
rude outlines into his own hands, retouched them, colored 

20 them, and is in truth the creator of the Sir Roger de Cov- 
erley and the Will Honeycomb with whom we are all 
familiar. 

The plan of the "Spectator" must be allowed to be both 
original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in 

25 the series may be read with pleasure separately; yet the 
five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole 
which has the interest of a novel. It must be remem- 
bered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a lively and 
powerful picture of the common life and manners of Eng- 

30 land, had appeared. Richardson was working as a com- 
positor. Fielding was robbing birds' nests. Smollett was 
not yet born. The narrative, therefore, which connects 
together the Spectator's Essays, gave to our ancestors 
their first taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. 

35 That narrative was indeed constructed with no art or 
labor. The events were such events as occur every day. 
Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy 
baronet always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Spec- 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 59 

tator on the water to Spring Gardens, walks among the 
tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened by the Mohawks, 
but conquers his apprehensions so far as to go to the 
theatre when the "Distressed Mother" is acted. The Spec- 
tator pays a visit in the summer to Coverley Hall, is 5 
charmed with the old house, the old butler, and the old 
chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will Wimble, rides to 
the assizes, and hears a point of law discussed by Tom 
Touchy. At last a letter from the honest butler brings 
to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honey- 10 
comb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up; 
and the Spectator resigns his functions. Such events can 
hardly be said to form a plot; yet they are related with 
such truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, such pathos, 
such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of 15 
the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hun- 
dredth perusal. We have not the least doubt that if Addi- 
son had written a novel, on an extensive plan, it would 
have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, he 
is entitled to be considered not only as the greatest of the 20 
English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great Eng- 
lish novelists. 

We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is the 
Spectator. About three-sevenths of the work are his; 
and it is no exaggeration to say, that his worst essay is 25 
as good as the best essay of any of his coadjutors. His 
best essays approach near to absolute perfection; nor is 
their excellence more wonderful than their variety. His 
iuvention never seems to flag; nor is he ever under the 
necessity of repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject. 30 
There are no dregs in his wine. He regales us after the 
fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that there was 
only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as we have 
tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, 
and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. On the 35 
Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as 
Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern 
apologue, as richly colored as the Tales of Scherezade; 



60 MACAULAY 

on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of 
La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, 
equal to the best chapters in the "Vicar of Wakefield"; 
on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashion- 
5 able follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet-shows; and on 
the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a 
comparison with the finest passages in Massillon. 

It is dangerous to select where there is so much that de- 
serves the highest praise. We will venture, however, to 

10 say, that any person who wishes to form a just notion of 
the extent and variety of Addison's powers, will do well 
to read at one sitting the following papers;— the two Visits 
to the Abbey, the Visit to the Exchange, the Journal 
of the Retired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, the Trans- 

15 migrations of Pug the Monkey, and the Death of Sir 
Roger de Coverley. 1 

The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the 

"Spectator" are, in the judgment of our age, his critical 

►apers. Yet his critical papers are always luminous, and 

20 often ingenious. The very worst of them must be re- 
garded as creditable to him, when the character of the 
school in which he had been trained is fairly considered. 
The best of them were much too good for his readers. In 
truth, he was not so far behind our generation as he was 

25 before his own. No essays in the "Spectator" were more 
censured and derided than those in which he raised his 
voice against the contempt with which our fine old ballads 
were regarded, and showed the scoffers that the same gold 
which, burnished and polished, gives lustre to the JEneid 

30 and the Odes of Horace, is mingled with the rude dross of 
"Chevy Chace." 

It is not strange that the success of the "Spectator" 
should have been such as no similar work has ever ob- 
tained. The number of copies daily distributed was at 

35 first three thousand. It subsequently increased, and had 
risen to near four thousand when the stamp tax was im- 

iNos. 26, 329, 69, 317, 159, 343, 517. These papers are all in the 
first seven volumes. The eighth must be considered as a separate 
work.' 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 61 

posed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of journals. The 
"Spectator," however, stood its ground, doubled its price, 
and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large 
revenue both to the state and to the authors. For particu- 
lar papers, the demand was immense; of some, it is said, 5 
twenty thousand copies were required. But this was not 
all. To have the "Spectator" served up every morning 
with the bohea and rolls, was a luxury for the few. The 
majority were content to wait till essays enough had ap- 
peared to form a volume. Ten thousand copies of each 10 
volume were immediately taken off, and new editions were 
called for. It must be remembered, that the population 
of England was then hardly a third of what it now is. 
The number of Englishmen who were in the habit of 
reading was probably not a sixth of what it now is. A 15 
shopkeeper or a farmer who found any pleasure in litera- 
ture was a rarity. Nay, there was doubtless more than 
one knight of the shire whose country-seat did not contain 
ten books, receipt-books and books on farriery included. 
In these circumstances, the sale of the "Spectator" must 20 
be considered as indicating a popularity quite as great as 
that of the most successful works of Sir Walter Scott 
and Mr. Dickens in our own time. 

At the close of 1712 the "Spectator" ceased to appear. 
It was probably felt that the short-faced gentleman and 25 
his club had been long enough before the town; and that 
it was time to withdraw them, and to replace them by a 
new set of characters. In a few weeks the first number 
of the "Guardian" was published. But the "Guardian" 
was unfortunate both, in its birth and in its death. It 30 
began in dulness, and disappeared in a tempest of faction. 
The original plan was bad. Addison contributed nothing 
till sixty-six numbers had appeared; and it was then im- 
possible to make the "Guardian" what the "Spectator" 
had been. Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards were 35 
people to whom even he could impart no interest. He 
could only furnish some exce^ent little essays, both serious 
and comic ; and this he did. 



62 MACAULAY 

Why Addison gave no assistance to the "Guardian/* 

during the first two months of its existence, is a question 

which has puzzled the editors and biographers, but which 

seems to us to admit of a very easy solution. He was 

5 then engaged in bringing his "Cato" on the stage. 

The first four acts Of this drama had been lying in his 
desk since his return from Italy. His modest and sensi- 
tive nature shrank from the risk of a public and shameful 
failure ; and, though all who saw the manuscript were loud 

10 in praise, some thought it possible that an audience might 
become impatient even of very good rhetoric, and advised 
Addison to print the play without hazarding a repre- 
sentation. At length, after many fits of apprehension, 
the poet yielded to the urgency of his political friends, 

15 who hoped that the public would discover some analogy 
between the followers of Caesar and the Tories, between 
Sempronius and the apostate Whigs, between Cato, strug-' 
gling to the last for the liberties of Rome, and the band 
of patriots who still stood firm round Halifax and Whar- 

20 ton. 

Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury Lane 
theatre, without stipulating for any advantage to himself. 
They, therefore, thought themselves bound to spare no 
cost in scenery and dresses. The decorations, it is true, 

25 Avould not have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready. 
Juba's waistcoat blazed with gold lace ; Marcia's hoop was 
worthy of a Duchess on the birthday; and Cato wore a 
wig worth fifty guineas. The prologue was written by 
Pope, and is undoubtedly a dignified and spirited compo- 

30 sition. The part of the hero was excellently played by 
Booth. Steele undertook to pack a house. The boxes 
were in a blaze with the stars of the Peers in Opposition. 
The pit was crowded with attentive and friendly listeners 
from the Inns of Court and the literary coffee-houses. Sir 

35 Gilbert Heatheote, Governor of the Bank of England, was 
at the head of a powerful body of auxiliaries from the 
city, warm men and true Whigs, but better known at 
Jonathan's and Garraway's than in the haunts of wits 
and critics. 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OE ADDISON 63 

These precautions were quite superfluous. The Tories, 
as a body, regarded Addison with no unkind feelings. 
Nor was it for their interest, professing, as they did, 
profound reverence for law and prescription, and abhor- 
rence both of popular insurrections and of standing 5 
armies, to appropriate to themselves reflections thrown on 
the great military chief and demagogue, who, with the 
support of the legions and of the common people, sub- 
verted all the ancient institutions of his country. Ac- 
cordingly, every shout that was raised by the members of 1Q 
the Kit Cat was echoed by the High Churchmen of the 
October; and the curtain at length fell amidst thunders 
of unanimous applause. 

The delight and admiration of the town were described 
by the "Guardian" in terms which we might attribute to 15 
partiality, were it not that the "Examiner," the organ of 
the Ministry, held similar language. The Tories, indeed, 
found much to sneer at in the conduct of their opponents. 
Steele had on this, as on other occasions, shown more zeal 
than taste or judgment. The honest citizens who marched 20 
under the orders of Sir Gibby, as he was facetiously called, 
probably knew better when to buy and when to sell stock 
than when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred 
some ridicule by making the hypocritical Sempronius 
their favorite, and by giving to his insincere rants louder 25 
plaudits than they bestowed on the temperate eloquence 
of Cato. Wharton, too, who had the incredible effrontery 
to applaud the lines about flying from prosperous vice 
and from the power of impious men to a private station, 
did not escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought 30 
that he could fly from nothing more vicious or impious 
than himself. The epilogue, which was written by Garth, 
a zealous Whig, was severely and not unreasonably cen- 
sured as ignoble and out of place. But Addison was de- 
scribed, even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman 35 
of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of 
both parties were happy, and whose name ought not to 
be mixed up with factious squabbles. 



64 MACAULAY 

Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party 
was disturbed, the most severe and happy was Boling- 
broke's. Between two acts, he sent for Booth to his box, 
and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse 
5 of fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well 
against a perpetual dictator. This was a pungent allusion 
to the attempt which Marlborough had made, not long be- 
fore his fall, to obtain a patent creating him Captain 
General for life. 

!o It was April; and in April, a hundred and thirty years 
ago, the London season was thought to be far advanced. 
During a whole month, however, "Cato" was performed to 
overflowing houses, and brought into the treasury of the 
theatre twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the 

15 summer the Drury Lane company went down to the Act 
at, Oxford, and there, before an audience which retained 
an affectionate remembrance of Addison's accomplish- 
ments and virtues, his tragedy was acted during several 
days. The gownsmen began to besiege the theatre in the 

20 forenoon, and by one in the afternoon all the seats were 
filled. 

About the merits of the piece which had so extra- 
ordinary an effect, the public, we suppose, has made up 
its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of the 

25 Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the time 
of Elizabeth, or even with the productions of Schiller's 
manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it contains excel- 
lent dialogue and declamation, and, among plays fash- 
ioned on the French model, must be allowed to rank high ; 

30 not indeed with "Athalie," or "Saul"; but, we think, not 
below "China," and certainly above any other English 
tragedy of the same school, above many of the plays of 
Corneille, above many of the plays of Voltaire and Al- 
fieri, and above some plays of Racine. Be this as it may, 

35 we have little doubt that "Cato" did as much as the "Tat- 
ters," "Spectators," and "Freeholders" united, to raise 
Addison's fame among his contemporaries. 

The modestv and good nature of the successful drama- 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 65 

tist had tamed even the malignity of faction. But literary 
envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion than party spirit. 
It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack on the 
Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis published "Re- 
marks on Cato," which were written with some acuteness 5 
and with much coarseness and asperity. Addison neither 
defended himself nor retaliated. On many points he had 
an excellent defence; and nothing would have been easier 
than to retaliate; for Dennis had written bad odes, bad 
tragedies, bad comedies : he had, moreover, a larger share 10 
than most men of those infirmities and eccentricities which 
excite laughter; and Addison's power of turning either an 
absurd book or an absurd man into ridicule was unri- 
valled. Addison, however, serenely conscious of his supe- 
riority, looked with pity on his assailant, whose temper, r5 
naturally irritable and gloomy, had been soured by want, 
by controversy, and by literary failures. 

But among the young candidates for Addison's favor 
there was one distinguished by talents from the rest, and 
distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and insin- 20 
cerity. Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers had 
expanded to their full maturity; and his best poem, the 
"Rape of the Lock," had recently been published. Of 
his genius, Addison had always expressed high admira- 
tion. But Addison had early discerned, what might in- 25 
deed have been discerned by an eye less penetrating than 
his, that the diminutive, crooked, sickly boy was eager to 
revenge himself on society for the unkindness of nature. 
In the "Spectator," the "Essay on Criticism" had been 
praised with cordial warmth; but a gentle hint had been 30 
added, that the writer of so excellent a poem would have 
done well to avoid ill-natured personalities. Pope, though 
evidently more galled by the censure than gratified by the 
praise, returned thanks for the admonition, and promised 
to profit by it. The two writers continued to exchange 35 
civilities, counsel, and small good offices. Addison pub- 
licly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces; and Pope fur- 
nished Addison with a prologue. This did not last long. 



66 MACAULAY 

Pope hated Dennis, whom he had injured without provo- 
cation. The appearance of the "Remarks on Cato" gave 
the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice 
under the show of friendship; and such an opportunity 
5 could not but be welcome to a nature which was implaca- 
ble in enmity, and which always preferred the tortuous to 
the straight path. He published, accordingly, the "Narra- 
tive of the Frenzy of John Dennis." But Pope had mis- 
taken his powers. He was a great master of invective 

10 and sarcasm: he could dissect a character in terse and 
sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis: but of dra- 
matic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had written 
a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus, or that on 
Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. But 

15 Pope writing dialogue resembled— to borrow Horace's im- 
agery and his own — a wolf, which, instead of biting, 
should take to kicking, or a monkey which should try to 
sting. The "Narrative" is utterly contemptible. Of argu- 
ment there is not even the show; and the jests are such as, 

20 if they were introduced into a farce, would call forth the 
hisses of the shilling gallery. Dennis raves about the 
drama; and the nurse thinks that he is calling for a 
dram. "There is," he cries, "no peripetia in the tragedy, 
no change of fortune, no change at all." "Pray, good 

25 Sir, be not angry," says the old woman; "I '11 fetch 
change." This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison. 

There can be no doubt that Addison saw through this 
officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved by it. 
So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him no good, 

30 and, if he were thought to have any hand in it, must do 
him harm. Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, 
he had never, even in self-defence, used those powers in- 
humanly or uncourteously; and he was not disposed to let 
others make his fame and his interests a pretext under 

35 which they might commit outrages from which he had 
himself constantly abstained. He accordingly declared 
that he had no concern in the "Narrative," that he disap- 
proved of it, and that if he answered the "Remarks," he 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 67 

would answer them like a gentleman; and he took care to 
communicate this to Dennis. Pope was bitterly mortified; 
and to this transaction we are inclined to ascribe the 
hatred with which he ever after regarded Addison. 

In September, 1713, the "Guardian" ceased to appear. 5 
Steele had gone mad about politics. A general election 
had just taken place: he had been chosen member for 
Stockbridge; and he fully expected to play a first part 
in Parliament. The immense success of the "Tatler" and 
"Spectator" had turned his head. He had been the editor of 10 
both those papers, and was not aware how entirely they owed 
their influence and popularity to the genius of his friend. 
His spirits, always violent, were now excited by vanity, 
ambition, and faction, to such a pitch that he every day 
committed some offence against good sense and good 15 
taste. All the discreet and moderate members of his own 
party regretted and condemned his folly. "I am in a 
thousand troubles," Addison wrote, "about poor Dick, 
and wish that his zeal for the public may not be ruinous 
to himself. But he has sent me word that he is deter- 20 
mined to go on, and that any advice I may give him in 
this particular will have no weight with him." 

Steele set up a political paper called the "Englishman," 
which, as it was not supported by contributions from Ad- 
dison, completely failed. By this work, by some other 25 
writings of the same kind, and by the airs which he gave 
himself at the first meeting of the new Parliament, he 
made the Tories so angry that they determined to expel 
him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but were unable 
to save him. The vote of expulsion was regarded by all 30 
dispassionate men as a tyrannical exercise of the power 
of the majority. But Steele's violence and folly, though 
they by no means justified the steps which his enemies 
took, had completely disgusted his friends; nor did he 
ever regain the place which he had held in the public 35 
estimation. 

Addison about this time conceived the design of adding 
an eighth volume to the "Spectator." In June, 1714, the 



68 MACAULAY 

first number of the new series appeared, and during about 
six months three papers were published weekly. Nothing 
can be more striking than the contrast between the "Eng- 
lishman" and the eighth volume of the "Spectator," be- 
5 tween Steele without Addison and Addison without Steele. 
The "Englishman" is forgotten; the eighth volume of 
the "Spectator" contains, perhaps, the finest essays, both 
serious and playful, in the English language. 

Before this volume was completed, the death of Anne 

10 produced an entire change in the administration of public 
affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the Tory 
party distracted by internal feuds, and unprepared for 
any great effort. Harley had just been disgraced. Bo- 
lingbroke, it was supposed, would be the chief minister. 

15 But the Queen was on her death-bed before the white staff 
had been given, and her last public act was to deliver it 
with a feeble hand to the Duke of Shrewsbury. The 
emergency produced a coalition between all sections of 
public men who were attached to the Protestant succes- 

20 sion. George the First was proclaimed without opposi- 
tion. A Council, in which the leading Whigs had seats, 
took the direction of affairs till the new King should ar- 
rive. The first act of the Lords Justices was to appoint 
Addison their secretary. 

25 There is an idle tradition that he was directed to pre- 
pare a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy him- 
self as to the style of this composition, and that the Lords 
Justices called in a clerk who at once did what was wanted. 
It is not strange that a story so flattering to mediocrity 

30 should be popular; and we are sorry to deprive dunces 
of their consolation. But the truth must be told. It was 
well observed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose knowledge 
of these times was unequalled, that Addison never, in any 
official document, affected wit or eloquence, and .that his 

35 dispatches are, without exception, remarkable for unpre- 
tending simplicity. Everybody who knows with what 
ease Addison's finest essays were produced must be con- 
vinced that, if well turned phrases had been wanted, he 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 69 

would have had no difficulty in finding them. We are, 
however, inclined to believe, that the story is not abso- 
lutely without a foundation. It may well be that Addison 
did not know, till he had consulted experienced clerks 
who remembered the times when William the Third was 5 
absent on the Continent, in what form a letter from the 
Council of Regency to the King ought to be drawn. We 
think it very likely that the ablest statesmen of our time, 
Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, 
for example, would, in similar circumstances, be found 10 
quite as ignorant. Every office has some little mysteries 
which the dullest man may learn with a little attention, 
and which the greatest man cannot possibly know by in- 
tuition. One paper must be signed by the chief of the 
department; another by his deputy: to a third the royal 15 
sign manual is necessary. One communication is to be regis- 
tered, and another is not. One sentence must be in black 
ink, and another in red ink. If the ablest Secretary for 
Ireland were moved to the India Board, if the ablest 
President of the India Board were moved to the War 20 
Office, he would require instruction on points like these; 
and we do not doubt that Addison required such instruc- 
tion when he became, for the first time, Secretary to the 
Lords Justices. 

George the First took possession of his kingdom without 25 
opposition. A new Ministry was formed, and a new Par- 
liament favorable to the Whigs chosen. Sunderland was 
appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; and Addison again 
went to Dublin as Chief Secretary. 

At Dublin Swift resided; and there was much specula- 30 
tion about the way in which the Dean and the Secretary 
would behave towards each other. The relations which ex- 
isted between these remarkable men form an interesting 
and pleasing portion of literary history. They had early 
attached themselves to the same political party and to the 35 
same patrons. While Anne's Whig Ministry was in 
power, the visits of Swift to London and the official 
residence of Addison in Ireland had given them oppor- 



70 MACAULAY 

tunities of knowing each other. They were the two 
shrewdest observers of their age. But their observations 
on each other had led them to favorable conclusions. 
Swift did full justice to the rare powers of conversation 
5 which were latent under the bashful deportment of Addi- 
son. Addison, on the other hand, discerned much good 
nature under the severe look and manner of Swift; and, 
indeed, the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 were two 
very different men. 

io But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. The 
Whig statesmen loaded Addison with solid benefits. They 
praised Swift, asked him to dinner, and did nothing more 
for him. His profession laid them under a difficulty. In 
the State they could not promote him; and they had rea- 

15 son to fear that, by bestowing preferment in the Church 
on the author of the "Tale of a Tub," they might give 
scandal to the public, which had no high opinion of their 
orthodoxy. He did not make fair allowance for the diffi- 
culties which prevented Halifax and Somers from serving 

20 him, thought himself an ill-usep! man, sacrificed honor and 
consistency to revenge, joined the Tories, and became their 
most formidable champion. He soon found, however, that 
his old friends were less to blame than he had supposed. 
The dislike with which the Queen and the heads of the 

25 Church regarded him was insurmountable; and it was 
with the greatest difficulty that he obtained an ecclesias- 
tical dignity of no great value, on condition of fixing his 
residence in a country which he detested. 

Difference of political opinion had produced, not indeed 

30 a quarrel, but a coolness between Swift and Addison. 
They at length ceased altogether to see each other. Yet 
there was between them a tacit compact like that between 
the hereditary guests in the Iliad. 

" '~Eyxsa (P aXkr^Mtv ake6)fieda ml St' ofiihov 
35 HoXkoi [lev yap kfiol Tpwef Kkeiroi r' emKovpot, 

Kreiveiv, bv ice 6e6g ye 7r6pr) ml iroffol kixe'iu, 
Ho2,?iol (T av aol 'A^atot, ivaipe/J,ev t bv /ce dvvrjai." 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 71 

It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and in- 
sulted nobody, should not have calumniated or insulted 
Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to whom neither 
genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally seemed 
to find, like most other renegades, a peculiar pleasure in 5 
attacking old friends, should have shown so much respect 
and tenderness to Addison. 

Fortune had now changed. The accession of the House 
of Hanover had secured in England the liberties of the 
people, and in Ireland the dominion of the Protestant 10 
caste. To that caste Swift was more odious than any 
other man. He was hooted and even pelted in the streets 
of Dublin; and could not venture to ride along the strand 
for his health without the attendance of armed servants. 
Many whom he had formerly served now libelled and in- 15 
suited him. At this time Addison arrived. He had been 
advised not to show the smallest civility to the Dean of St. 
Patrick's. He had answered, with admirable spirit, that 
it might be necessary for men whose fidelity to their party 
was suspected, to hold no intercourse with political oppo- 20 
nents; but that one who had been a steady Whig in the 
worst times might venture, when the good cause was tri- 
umphant, to shake hands with an old friend who was one 
of the vanquished Tories. His kindness was soothing to 
the proud and cruelly wounded spirit of Swift; and the 25 
two great satirists resumed their habits of friendly inter- 
course. 

Those associates of Addison whose political opinions 
agreed with his shared his good fortune. He took Tickell 
with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a lucrative 30 
place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillipps was pro- 
vided for in England. Steele had injured himself so much 
by his eccentricity and perverseness that he obtained but 
a very small part of what he thought his due. He was, 
however, knighted; he had a place in the household; and 35 
he subsequently received other marks of favor from the 
court. 

Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he 



72 MACAULAY 

quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board of Trade. 
In the same year his comedy of the "Drummer" was 
brought on the stage. The name of the author was not 
announced; the piece was coldly received; and some critics 
5 have expressed a doubt whether it were really Addison's. 
To us the evidence, both external and internal, seems de- 
cisive. It is not in Addison's best manner ; but it contains 
numerous passages which no other writer known to us 
could have produced. It was again performed after Ad- 

10 dison's death, and, being known to be his, was loudly 
applauded. 

Towards the close of the year 1715, while the Rebellion 
was still raging in Scotland, Addison published the first 
number of a paper called the "Freeholder." Among his 

15 political works the "Freeholder" is entitled to the first 
place. Even in the "Spectator" there are few serious 
papers nobler than the character of his friend Lord 
Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superior to those 
in which the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. This char- 

20 acter is the original of Squire Western, and is drawn with 
all Fielding's force, and with a delicacy of which Fielding 
was altogether destitute. As none of Addison's works 
exhibit stronger marks of his genius than the "Free- 
holder," so none does more honor to his moral character. 

25 It is difficult to extol too highly the candor and humanity 
of a political writer whom even the excitement of civil 
war cannot- hurry into unseemly violence. Oxford, it is 
well known, was then the stronghold of Toryism. The 
High Street had been repeatedly lined with bayonets in 

30 order to keep down the disaffected gownsmen ; and traitors 
pursued by the messengers of the Government had been 
concealed in the garrets of several colleges. Yet the ad- 
monition which, even under such circumstances, Addison 
addressed to the University, is singularly gentle, respectful, 

35 and even affectionate. Indeed, he could not find it in his 
heart to deal harshly even with imaginary persons. His 
fox-hunter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at 
heart a good fellow, and is at last reclaimed by the 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 73 

clemency of the King. Steele was dissatisfied with his 
friend's moderation, and, though he acknowledged that 
the "Freeholder" was excellently written, complained that 
the Ministry played on a lute when it was necessary to 
blow the trumpet. He accordingly determined to execute 5 
a flourish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the 
public spirit of the nation by means of a paper called 
the "Town Talk," which is now as utterly forgotten as his 
"Englishman," as his "Crisis," as his "Letter to the Bailiff 
of Stockbridge," as his "Reader," in short, as everything 10 
that he wrote without the help of Addison. 

In the same year in which the "Drummer" was acted, 
and in which the first numbers of the "Freeholder" ap- 
peared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison became 
complete. Addison had from the first seen that Pope 15 
was false and malevolent. Pope had discovered that Ad- 
dison was jealous. The discovery was made in a strange 
manner. Pope had written the "Rape of the Lock," in 
two cantos, without supernatural machinery. These two 
cantos had been loudly applauded, and by none more loudly 20 
than by Addison. Then Pope thought of the Sylphs and 
Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel, and 
resolved to interweave the Rosicrucian mythology with 
the original fabric. He asked Addison's advice. Addison 
said that the poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, 25 
and entreated Pope not to run the risk of marring what 
was so excellent in trying to mend it.' Pope afterwards de- 
clared that this insidious counsel first opened his eyes to 
the baseness of him who gave it 

Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most 30 
ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with great 
skill and success. But does it necessarily follow that Ad- 
dison's advice was bad? And if Addison's advice was 
bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given from bad 
motives? If a friend were to ask us whether we would 35 
advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances 
were ten to one against him, we should do our best to 
dissuade him from running such a risk. Even if he were 



74 MACAULAY 

so lucky as to get the thirty thousand pound prize, we 
should not admit that we had counselled him ill; and 
we should certainly think it the height of injustice in him 
to accuse us of having been actuated by malice. We think 
5 Addison's advice good advice. It rested on a sound prin- 
ciple, the result of long and wide experience. The general 
rule undoubtedly is that, when a successful work of imag- 
ination has been produced, it should not be recast. We 
cannot at this moment call to mind a single instance in 

10 which this rule has been transgressed with happy effect, 
except the instance of the "Rape of the Lock." 
Tasso recast his "Jerusalem," Akenside recast his 
"Pleasures of the Imagination," and his "Epistle to 
Curio." Pope himself, emboldened no doubt by the success 

15 with which he had expanded and remodelled the "Rape 
of the Lock," made the same experiment on the "Dunciad." 
All these attempts failed. Who was to foresee that Pope 
would, once in his life, be able to do what he could not 
himself do twiee, and what nobody else has ever done ? 

20 Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, why 
should we pronounce it dishonest 1 ? Scott tells us that one 
of his best friends predicted the failure of "Waverley." 
Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a sub- 
ject as "Faust." Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from 

25 writing the "History of Charles the Fifth." Nay, Pope 
himself was one of those who prophesied that "Cato" 
would never succeed on the stage, and advised Addison 
to print it without risking a representation. But Scott, 
Goethe, Robertson, Addison, had the good sense and gen- 

30 erosity to give their advisers credit for the best inten- 
tions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind with theirs. 
In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the Iliad, 
he met Addison at a coffee-house. Phillipps and Budgell 
were there; but their sovereign got rid of them, and asked 

35 Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner, Addison said 
that he lay under a difficulty which he wished to explain. 
"Tickell," he said, "translated some time ago the first book 
of the Iliad. I have promised to look it over and correct 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 75 

it. I cannot therefore ask to see yours ; for that would be 
double dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged that 
his second book might have the advantage of Addison's 
revision. Addison readily agreed, looked over the second 
book, and sent it back with warm commendations. 5 

Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon after 
this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was ear- 
nestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should not go 
on with the Iliad. That enterprise he should leave to 
powers which he admitted to be superior to his own. His 10 
only view, he said, in publishing this specimen was to 
bespeak the favor of the public to a translation of the 
Odyssey, in which he had made some progress. 

Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pronounced 
both the versions good, but maintained that Tickell's had 15 
more of the original. The town gave a decided preference 
to Pope's. We do not think it worth while to settle such a 
question of precedence. Neither of the rivals can be said 
to have translated the Iliad, unless, indeed, the word 
translation be used in the sense which it bears in the 20 
"Midsummer Night's Dream." When Bottom makes his 
appearance with an ass's head instead of his own, Peter 
Quince exclaims, "Bless thee ! Bottom, bless thee ! thou art 
translated." In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of 
either Pope or Tickell may very properly exclaim, "Bless 25 
thee ! Homer ; thou art translated indeed." 

Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking 
that no man in Addison's situation could have acted more 
fairly and kindly, both towards Pope, and towards Tickell, 
than he appears to have done. But an odious suspicion had 30 
sprang up in the mind of Pope. He fancied, and he soon 
firmly believed, that there was a deep conspiracy against 
his fame and his fortunes. The work on which he had 
staked his reputation was to be depreciated. The sub- 
scription, on which rested his hopes of a competence, was 35 
to be defeated. With this view Addison had made a rival 
translation: Tickell had consented to father it; and the 
wits of Button's had united to puff it. 



76 MACAULAY 

Is there any external evidence to support this grave 
accusation? The answer is short. There is absolutely 
none. 

Was there any internal evidence which proved Addison 
5 to be the author of this version? Was it a work which 
Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely not. Tickell 
was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be sup- 
posed to have been able to construe the Iliad; and he 
was a better versifier than his friend. We are not aware 

10 that Pope pretended to have discovered any turns of ex- 
pression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of expres- 
sion been discovered, they would be sufficiently accounted 
for by supposing Addison to have corrected his friend's 
lines, as he owned that he had done. 

15 Is there anything in the character of the accused per- 
sons which makes the accusation probable? We answer 
confidently— nothing. Tickell was long after this time 
described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. 
Addison had been, during many years, before the public. 

20 Literary rivals, political opponents, had kept their eyes 
on him. But neither envy nor faction, in their utmost 
rage, had ever imputed to him a single deviation from the 
laws of honor and of social morality. Had he been indeed 
a man meanly jealous of fame, and capable of stooping to 

25 base and wicked arts for the purpose of injuring his com- 
petitors, would his vices have remained latent so long? 
He was a writer of tragedy: had he ever injured Rowe? 
He was a writer of comedy: had he not done ample jus- 
tice to Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele? He 

30 was a pamphleteer: have not his good nature and gener- 
osity been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in fame and 
his adversary in politics? 

That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems 
to us highly improbable. That Addison should have been 

35 guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. But that 
these two men should have conspired together to commit a 
villany seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. All that 
is known to us of their intercourse tends to prove, that it 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 77 

was not the intercourse of two accomplices in crime. 
These are some of the lines in which Tickell poured forth 
his sorrow over the coffin of Addison : 

" Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 
A task well suited to thy gentle mind? 5 

Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, 
To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. 
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, 
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, 
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 10 

And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; 
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, 
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.' 

In what words, we should like to know, did this guardian 
genius invite his pupil to join in a plan such as the editor 15 
of the "Satirist" would hardly dare to propose to the 
editor of the "Age" ? 

We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation which 
he knew to be false. We have not the smallest doubt that 
he believed it to be true; and the evidence on which he 20 
believed it he found in his own bad heart. His own life 
was one long series of tricks, as mean and as malicious as 
that of which he suspected Addison and Tickell. He was 
all stiletto and mask. To injure, to insult, and to save 
himself from the consequences of injury and insult by 25 
lying and equivocating, was the habit of his life. He 
published a lampoon on the Duke of Chandos; he was 
taxed with it; and he lied and equivocated. He published 
a lampoon on Aaron Hill; he was taxed with it; and he 
lied and equivocated. He published a still fouler lampoon 30 
on Lady Mary Wortley Montague; he was taxed with it; 
and he lied with more than usual effrontery and vehe- 
mence. He puffed himself and abused his enemies under 
feigned names. He robbed himself of his own letters, and 
then raised the hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds 35 
of malignity, of fear, of interest, and of vanity, there 
were frauds which he seems to have committed from love 



78 MACAULAY 

of fraud alone. He had a habit of strategern, a pleasure 
in outwitting all who came near him. Whatever his object 
might be, the indirect road to it was that which he pre- 
ferred. For Bolingbroke, Pope undoubtedly felt as much 
5 love and veneration as it was in his nature to feel for any 
human being. Yet Pope was scarcely dead when it was 
discovered that, from no motive except the mere love of 
artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross perfidy to 
Bolingbroke. 

10 Nothing was more natural than that such a man as this 
should attribute to others that which he felt within him- 
self. A plain, probable, coherent explanation is frankly 
given to him. He is certain that it is all a romance. A 
line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even friendly, is 

15 pursued towards him. He is convinced that it is merely a 
cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to be disgraced 
and ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. He has 
none, w 7 ants none, except those which he carries in his own 
bosom. 

20 Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison 
to retaliate for the first and last time, cannot now be 
known with certainty. We have only Pope's story, which 
runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some reflec- 
tions which stung Pope to the quick. What those reflec- 

25 tions were, and whether they were reflections of which 
he had a right to complain, Ave have now no means of decid- 
ing. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and vicious lad, who 
regarded Addison w T ith the feelings with which such lads 
generally regard their best friends, told Pope, truly or 

30 falsely, that this pamphlet had been written by Addison's 
direction. When we consider what a tendency stories 
have to grow, in passing even from one honest man to 
another honest man, and when we consider that to the 
name of honest man neither Pope nor the Earl of W T ar- 

35 wick had a claim, we are not disposed to attach much 
importance to this anecdote. 

It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. He had 
already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. In 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 79 

his anger he turned this prose into the brilliant and ener- 
getic lines which everybody knows by heart, or 
ought to know by heart, and sent them to Ad- 
dison. One charge which Pope has enforced with 
great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison 5 
was, we are inclined to believe, too fond of presiding over . 
a circle of humble friends. Of the other imputations 
which these famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely 
one has ever been proved to be just, and some are cer- 
tainly false. That Addison was not in the habit of 10 
"damning with faint praise" appears from innumerable 
passages in his writings, and from none more than from 
those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not merely 
unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made the 
fortune of almost every one of his intimate friends, as 15 
"so obliging that he ne'er obliged." 

That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly, we 
cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one of the weak- 
nesses with which he was reproached, is highly probable. 
But his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of the 20 
gravest part of the accusation. He acted like himself. As 
a satirist he was, at his own weapons, more than Pope's 
match : and he would have been at no loss for topics. A dis- 
torted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet more distorted 
and diseased mind; spite and envy thinly disguised by sen- 25 
timents as benevolent and noble as those which Sir Peter 
Teazle admired in Mr. Joseph Surface; a feeble, sickly 
licentiousness ; an odious love of filthy and noisome images ; 
these were things which a genius less powerful than that 
to which we owe the " Spectator " could easily have held up 30 
to the mirth and hatred of mankind. Addison had, more- 
over, at his command other means of vengeance which a 
bad man would not have scrupled to use. He was power- 
ful in the State. Pope was a Catholic ; and, in those times, 
a minister would have found it easy to harass the most 35 
innocent Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. Pope, 
near twenty years later, said that "through the lenity 
of the government alone he could live with comfort." 



80 MACAULAY 

"Consider," he exclaimed, "the injury that a man of high 
rank and credit may do to a private person, under penal 
laws and many other disadvantages." It is pleasing to 
reflect that the only revenge which Addison took was to 
5 insert in the "Freeholder" a warm encomium on the 

• translation of the Iliad, and to exhort all lovers of 
learning to put down their names as subscribers. There 
could be no doubt, he said, from the specimens already 
published, that the masterly hand of Pope would do as 

10 much for Homer as Dryden had done for Virgil. From 
that time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, 
by Pope's own acknowledgment, with justice. Friend- 
ship was, of course, at an end. 

One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick to play 

15 the ignominious part of talebearer on this occasion, may 
have been his dislike of the marriage which was about to 
take place between his mother and Addison. The Countess 
Dowager, a daughter of the old and honorable family of 
the Myddletons of Chirk, a family which, in any country 

20 but ours, would be called noble, resided at Holland House. 
Addison had, during some years, occupied at Chelsea a 
small dwelling, once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea 
is now a district of London, and Holland House may be 
called a town residence. But, in the days of Anne and 

25 George the First, milkmaids and sportsmen wandered be- 
tween green hedges and over fields bright with daisies, 
from Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. 
Addison and Lady Warwick were country neighbors, and 
became intimate friends. The great wit and scholar tried 

30 to allure the young Lord from the fashionable amuse- 
ments of beating watchmen, breaking windows, and roll- 
ing women in hogsheads down Holborn Hill, to the study 
of letters and the practice of virtue. These well meant 
exertions did little good, however, either to the disciple or 

35 to the master. Lord Warwick grew up a rake ; and Addi- 
son fell in love. The mature beauty of the Countess has 
been celebrated by poets in language which, after a very 
large allowance has been made for flattery, would lead us 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 81 

to believe that she was a fine woman; and her rank doubt- 
less heightened her attractions. The courtship was long. 
The hopes of the lover appear to have risen and fallen 
with the fortunes of his party.. His attachment was at 
length matter of such notoriety that, when he visited Ire- 5 
land for the last time, Rowe addressed some consolatory 
verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a 
little strange that, in these verses, Addison should be called 
Lycidas, a name of singularly evil omen for a swain just 
about to cross St. George's Channel. 10 

At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed able 
to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason to ex- 
pect preferment even higher than that which he had at- 
tained. He had inherited the fortune of a brother who 
died Governor of Madras. He had purchased an estate 15 
in Warwickshire, and had been welcomed to his domain 
in very tolerable verse by one of the neighboring squires, 
the poetical fox-hunter, William Somervile. In August, 
1716, the newspapers announced that Joseph Addison, 
Esquire, famous for many excellent works both in verse 20 
and prose, had espoused the Countess Dowager of War- 
wick. 

He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a house 
which can boast of a greater number of inmates distin- 
guished in political and literary history than any other 25 
private dwelling in England. His portrait still hangs 
there. The features are pleasing; the complexion is re- 
markably fair; but, in the expression, we trace rather the 
gentleness of his disposition than the force and keenness 
of his intellect. ' 30 

Not long after his marriage he reached the height of 
civil greatness. The Whig Government had, during some 
time, been torn by internal dissensions. Lord Town- 
shend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunder- 
land the other. At length, in the spring of 1717, 35 
Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired from office, 
and was accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. Sun- 
derland proceeded to, reconstruct the Ministry; and Ad- 



82 MACAULAY 

dison was appointed Secretary of State. It is certain that 
the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at first de- 
clined by him. Men equally versed in official business 
might easily have been found; and his colleagues knew 
5 rhat they could not expect assistance from him in debate. 
He owed his elevation to his popularity, to his stainless 
probity, and to his literary fame. 

But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when his 
health began to fail. From one serious attack he recovered 

10 in the autumn; and his recovery was celebrated in Latin 
verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, who 
was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon 
took place; and, in the following spring, Addison was 
prevented by a severe asthma from discharging the duties 

15 of his post. He resigned it, and was succeeded by his 
friend Craggs, a young man whose natural parts, though 
little improved by cultivation, were quick and showy, 
whose graceful person and winning manners had made 
him generally acceptable in society, and who, if he had 

20 lived, would probably have been the most formidable of 
all the rivals of Walpole. 

As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The Ministers, 
therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a retiring pen- 
sion of fifteen hundred pounds a year. In what form this 

25 pension was given we are not told by the biographers, and 
have not time to inquire. But it is certain that Addison 
did not vacate his seat in the House of Commons. 

Rest of mind and body seemed to have re-established 
his health; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for 

30 having set him free both from his office and from his 
asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, and he 
meditated many works, a tragedy on the death of Socrates, 
a translation of the Psalms, a treatise on the evidences of 
Christianity. Of this last performance, a part, which we 

35 could well spare, has come down to us. 

But the fatal complaint soon returned, and gradually 
prevailed against all the resources of medicine. It is 
melancholy to think that the last months o£ such a life 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 83 

should have been overclouded both by domestic and by 
political vexations. A tradition which began early, which 
lias been generally received, and to which we have nothing 
to oppose, has represented his wife as an arrogant and 
imperious woman. It is said that, till his health failed 5 
him, he was glad to escape from the Countess Dowager 
and her magnificent dining-room, blazing with the gilded 
devices of the House of Rich, to some ■ tavern where he 
could enjoy a laugh, a talk about Virgil and Boileau, and 
a bottle of claret, with the friends of his happier days. 10 
All those friends, however, were not left to him. Sir 
Richard Steele had been gradually estranged by various 
causes. He considered himself as one who, in evil times, 
had braved martyrdom for his political principles, and 
demanded, when the Whig party was triumphant, a large 15 
compensation for what he had suffered when it was mili- 
tant. The Whig leaders took a very different view of his 
claims. They thought that he had, by his own petulance 
and folly, brought them as well as himself into trouble, 
and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled 20 
out favors to him with a sparing hand. It was natural 
that he should be angry with them, and especially angry 
with Addison. But what above all seems to have dis- 
turbed Sir Richard was the elevation of Tickell, who, at 
thirty, was made by Addison Under Secretary of State; 25 
while the editor of the "Tatler" and "Spectator," the 
author of the "Crisis," the member for Stockbridge who 
had been persecuted for firm adherence to the House of 
Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many solicita- 
tions and complaints, to content himself with a share in 30 
the patent of Drury Lane theatre. Steele himself says, 
in his celebrated letter to Congreve, that Addison, by his 
preference of Tickell, "incurred the warmest resentment 
of other gentlemen;" and everything seemed to indicate 
that, of those resentful gentlemen, Steele was himself one. 35 

While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he 
considered as Addison's unkindness, a new cause of quarrel 
arose. The Whig party, already divided against itself, 



84 MACAULAY 

was rent by a new schism. The celebrated Bill for limit- 
ing the number ef Peers had been brought in. The proud 
Duke of Somerset, first in rank of all the nobles whose 
religion permitted them to sit in Parliament, was the 

5 ostensible author of the measure. But it was supported, 
and, in truth, devised by the Prime Minister. 

We are satisfied that the Bill was most pernicious; and 
we fear that the motives which induced Sunderland to 
frame it were not honorable to him. But we cannot deny 

10 that it was supported by many of the best and wisest men 
of that age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative 
had, within the memory of the generation then in the 
vigor of life, been so grossly abused, that it was still re- 
garded with a jealousy which, when the peculiar situation 

15 of the House of Brunswick is considered, may perhaps be 
called immoderate. The particular prerogative of creating 
peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly 
abused by Queen Anne's last ministry; and even .the 
Tories admitted that her Majesty, in swamping, as it has 

20 since been called, the Upper House, had done what only 
an extreme case could justify. The theory of the English 
constitution, according to many high authorities, was that 
three independent powers, the sovereign, the nobility, and 
the commons, ought constantly to act as checks on each 

25 other. If this theory were sound, it seemed to follow that 
to put one of these powers under the absolute control of 
the other two, was absurd. But if the number of peers 
were unlimited, it could not well be denied that the Upper 
House was under the absolute control of the Crown and 

30 the Commons, and was indebted only to their moderation 
for any power which it might be suffered to retain. 

Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the 

Ministers. Steele, in a paper called the "Plebeian," vehe- 

■ mently attacked the bill. Sunderland called for help on 

35 Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper called 
the "Old Whig," he answered, and indeed refuted, Steele's 
arguments. It seems to us that the premises of both the 
controversialists were unsound, that, on those premises, 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 85 

Addison reasoned well and Steele ill, and that consequently 
Addison brought out a false conclusion while Steele blun- 
dered upon the truth. In style, in wit, and in politeness, 
Addison maintained his superiority, though the "Old 
Whig" is by no means one of his happiest performances. 5 

At. first, both the anonymous opponents observed the 
laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far forgot him- 
self as to throw an odious imputation on the morals of 
the chiefs of the administration. Addison replied with 
severity, but, in our opinion, with less severity than was 10 
due to so grave an offence against morality and decorum; 
nor did he, in his just anger, forget for a moment the 
laws of good taste and good breeding. One calumny which 
has been often repeated, and never yet contradicted, it is 
our duty to expose. It is asserted in the "Biographia 15 
Britannica," that Addison designated Steele as "little 
Dicky." This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who 
had never seen the "Old Whig," and was therefore excus- 
able. It has also been repeated by Miss Aikin, who has 
seen the "Old Whig," and for whom therefore there is less 20 
excuse. Now, it is true that the words "little Dicky" oc- 
cur in the "Old Whig," and that Steele's name was 
Richard. It is equally true that the words "little Isaac" 
occur in the "Duenna," and that Newton's name was 
Isaac. But we confidently affirm that Addison's little Dicky 25 
had no more to do with Steele, than Sheridan's little Isaac 
with Newton. If we apply the words "little Dicky" to 
Steele, we deprive a very lively and ingenious passage, 
not only of all its wit, but of all its meaning. Little Dicky 
was the nickname of Henry Norris, an actor of remark- 30 
ably small stature, but of great humor, who played the 
usurer Gomez, then a most popular part, in Dryden's 
"Spanish Friar." 1 

1 We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can ever have 
been misunderstood is iinintelligible to us. 

"But our author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons, 
whom he represents as naked and defenceless, when the Crown, by 
losing this prerogative, would be less able to protect them against the 
power of a House of Lords. Who forbears laughing when the Spanish 
Friar represents little Dicky, under the person of Gomez, insulting 



86 MACAULAY 

The merited reproof which Steele had received, though 
softened by some kjnd and courteous expressions, galled 
him bitterly. He replied with little force and great acri- 
mony; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast 
5 hastening to his grave; and had, we may well suppose, 
little disposition to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. 
His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He bore up long 
and manfully. But at length he abandoned all hope, dis- 
missed his physicians, and calmly prepared himself to die. 

10 His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and dedi- 
cated them a very few days before his death to Craggs,. 
in a letter written with the sweet and graceful eloquence 
of a Saturday's "Spectator." In this, his last composi- 
tion, he alluded to his approaching end in words so 

15 manly, so cheerful, and so tender, that it is difficult to- 
read them without tears. At the same time he earnestly 
recommended the interests of Tickell to the care of Craggs. 
Within a few hours of the time at Avhich this dedication 
was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then living 

20 by his wits about town, to come to Holland House. Gay 
went, and was received with great kindness. To his 
amazement his forgiveness was implored by the dying 
man. Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of 
mankind, could not imagine what he had to forgive. 

25 There was, however, some wrong, the remembrance of 
which weighed on Addison's mind, and which he declared 
himself anxious to repair. He was in a state of extreme 
exhaustion; and the parting was doubtless a friendly one 
on both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to serve him 

30 had been in agitation at Court, and had been frustrated 
by Addison's influence. Nor is this improbable. Gay had 
paid assiduous court to the royal family. But in the 

the Colonel that was able to fright him out of his wits with a single 
frown ? This Gomez, says he, flew upon him like a dragon, got him 
down, the Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado on basti- 
nado, arid buffet on buffet, which the poor Colonel, being prostrate, 
suffered with a most Christian patience. The improbability of the 
fact never fails to raise mirth in the audience; and one may venture 
to answer for a British House of Commons, if we may guess, from its 
conduct hitherto, that it will scarce be either so tame or so weak as 
our author supposes." 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 87 

Queen's days he had been the eulogist of Bolingbroke, 
and was still connected with many Tories. It is not 
strange that Addison, while heated by conflict, should 
have thought himself justified in obstructing the prefer- 
ment of one whom he might regard as a political enemy. 5 
Neither is it strange that, when reviewing his whole life, 
and earnestly scrutinizing all his motives, he should think 
that he had acted an unkind and ungenerous part, in using 
his power against a distressed man of letters, who was as 
harmless and as helpless as a child. 10 

One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. It 
appears that Addison, on his deathbed, called himself to 
a strict account, and was not at ease till he had asked 
pardon for an injury which it was not even suspected that 
he had committed, for an injury which would have caused 15 
disquiet only to a very tender conscience. Is it not then 
reasonable to infer that, if he had really been guilty 
of forming a base conspiracy against the fame and for- 
tunes of a rival, he would have expressed some remorse 
for so serious a crime? But it is unnecessary to multiply 20 
arguments and evidence for the defence, when there is 
neither argument nor evidence for the accusation. 

The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene 
His interview with his son-in-law is universally known. 
"See," he said, "how a Christian can die." The piety 25 
of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful char- 
acter. The feeling which predominates in all his devo- 
tional writings is gratitude. God was to him the all-wise 
and all-powerful friend who had watched over his cradle 
with more than maternal tenderness; who had listened to 30 
his cries before they could form themselves in prayer; 
who had preserved his youth from the snares of vice ; who 
had made his cup run over with worldly blessings; who 
had doubled the value of those blessings, by bestowing 
a thankful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends to par- 35 
take them; who had rebuked the waves of the Ligurian 
gulf, had purified the autumnal air of the Campagna, and 
had restrained the avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the 



88 MACAULAY 

Psalms, his favorite was that which represents the Ruler 
of all things under the endearing- image of a shepherd, 
whose crook guides the flock safe, through gloomy and 
desolate glens, to meadows well watered and rich with 
5 herbage. On that goodness to which he ascribed all the 
happiness of his life, he relied in the hour of death with 
the love which casteth out fear. He died on the seven- 
teenth of June, 1719. He had just entered on his forty- 
eighth year. 

10 His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and 
was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The 
choir sung a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of 
those Tories who had loved and honored the most accom- 
plished of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led the pro- 

15 cession by torchlight, round the shrine of Saint Edward 
and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the Chapel of 
Henry the Seventh. On the north side of that Chapel, in 
the vault of the House of Albemarle, the coffin of Addi- 
son lies next to the coffin of Montague. Yet a few 

20 months, and the same mourners passed again along the 
same aisle. The same sad anthem was again chanted. 
The same vault was again opened; and the coffin of 
Craggs was placed close to the coffin of Addison. 

Man}' tributes were paid to the memory of Addison; 

25 but one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his 
friend in an elegy which would do honor to the greatest 
name in our literature, and which unites the energy and 
magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of 
Cowper. This fine poem was prefixed to a superb edition 

30 of Addison's works, which was published, in 1721, by 
subscription. The names of the subscribers proved how 
widely his fame had been spread. That his countrymen 
should be eager to possess his writings, even in a costly 
form, is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that, though 

35 English literature was then little studied on the Continent, 
Spanish Grandees, Italian Prelates, Marshals of France, 
should be found in the list. Among the most remarkable 
names are those of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 89 

Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of 
Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of the Doge of Genoa, of 
the Regent Orleans, and of Cardinal Dubois. We ought 
to add that this edition, though eminently beautiful, is in 
some important points defective; nor, indeed, do we yet 5 
possess a complete collection of Addison's writings. 

It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, 
nor any of his powerful and attached friends, should have 
thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his 
name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till three 10 
generations had laughed and wept over his pages that the 
omission was supplied by the public veneration. At 
length, in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, ap- 
peared in Poets' Corner. It represents him as we can 
conceive him, clad in his dressing gown, and freed from 15 
his wig, stepping from his parlor at Chelsea into his trim 
little garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club, or 
the Loves of Hilpa and Shalum, just finished for the next 
day's "Spectator," in his hand. Such a mark of national 
respect was due to the unsullied statesman, to the accom- 20 
plished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to 
the consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, 
above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use 
ridicule without abusing it, who, without inflicting a 
wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled 25 
wit and virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, 
during which wit had been led astray by profligacy and 
virtue by fanaticism. 



NOTES 



Text. — The essay on the Life and Writings of Addison 
was a review of Miss Lucy Aikin 's ' ' Life of Joseph Addi- 
son, ' ' and was published in ' ' The Edinburgh Review, ' ' July, 
1843. The present edition is prepared from the original 
article and the reprint in the collected works of Macaulay 
edited by Lady Trevelyan— Vol. vn, pp. 52-122 (Longmans, 
Green and Co., 1879). 

Page 3, line 12 — Knight . . . Balisarda. A reference to 
Ariosto 's romantic poem, ' ' Orlando Furioso, ' ' xlv, 68, where 
the knight and the lady (Ruggiero and Bradamante), who are 
the central figures of the poem, engage in battle for a whole 
day. 

4, 3 — Laputan. Gulliver's third voyage was to the island 
of Laputa. Here the people tended to be lost in profound 
speculation. Accordingly those who could afford it kept 
in their family a flapper whose business it was to carry a 
bladder filled with dried peas, wherewith to flap their mas- 
ter gently when his attention needed to be aroused. 

4, 14— She is better . . . Hampton. A good instance 
of Macaulay 's love of concrete illustration. This deluge of 
names, bewildering as it is to one of more limited reading 
than his, is characteristic. Shakespeare and Sir Walter 
Ealeigh need no comment. Congreve (1670-1729), one of 
the greatest writers of English comedy, and Prior (1664- 
]721), a well-known but less-important poet and politician, 
were two of the most familiar literary figures of the England 
of William III and Queen Anne. 

4, 17— Theobald's. The residence of Queen Elizabeth's 
great minister, Lord Burleigh. — Steenkirks. A name ap- 
plied to several articles of dress that came into fashion 
after the battle of Steenkirk in 1692, but especially to a 
loose neckcloth of fine lace.— periwigs. Another form of 
the word peruke, meaning a large wig covering the sides of the 
head as well as the crown. In Addison 's time they were worn 

91 



92 NOTES 

frequently with ample curls falling on the shoulders. The 
custom has survived to our own time in the great wigs offi- 
cially worn by English judges. 

4, 18 — Hampton. Hampton Court, a royal palace on the 
Thames a few miles from London, built by Cardinal Wolsey 
and much used by James II, William III, and Anne. 

5, 6 — Parnell. Thomas Parnell, an Irish poet contempo- 
rary with Addison. 

5, 7 — Blair. A Scotch divine, lecturer on rhetoric at Edin- 
burgh, ,1672-83.— tragedy . . . Dr. Johnson's. Johnson's 
only tragedy, "Irene," was produced by Garrick in 1749 at 
Drury-Lane Theatre, and was a failure. 

5, 17 — Button's. A coffee-house near Covent Garden, 
established by an old servant of Addison's about 1712. As 
to the company who worshipped here, see pages 43-46. 

6, 3 — a violent Royalist. Oxford, always conservative, 
was loyal in the great conflict of the seventeenth century to 
the Stuart kings and the Church of England. She was only 
alienated at last from James II by his attacks on the English 
Church, and by his interference with the liberties of the 
University. 

6, 8 — The Wild of Sussex. More usually called the Weald, 
(Anglo-Saxon weald, forest, wilds) — an area which takes its 
name from the time when it covered the wildest parts of 
Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. 

6, 10 — Dunkirk. A strong French fortress and seaport on 
the Straits of Dover, ceded to Cromwell in 1658 and sold 
back to France by Charles II four years later. 

6, 30 — Convocation. The clergy of the Church of England 
in formal assembly. 

6, 35 — Charter House. An endowed almshouse and school 
for boys in London. The name is a corruption of Chartreuse 
(Latin, Cartusia), a village in France where the Carthusian 
order of monks was founded. In 1371 a Carthusian monas- 
tery was founded in London. After the dissolution of the 
monasteries by Henry VIII the building passed through 
various hands until 1611, when it became an almshouse 
and school. The building is still standing, though the school 
has been transferred to Godalming in Surrey. 

8, 30— Lucretius . . . Prudentius. That is to say, from the 



NOTES 93 

time of Caesar to the early fifth century. Lucretius (98-55 
B.C.), Prudentius (348- after 405 a.d.)— Latin poets. 

9, 25 — story of Pentheus. Pentheus, grandson of Cadmus 
and his successor as king of Thebes, angered the god Diony- 
sus. His mother and other women were thereupon smitten 
with frenzy by the god, and mistaking the unfortunate king 
for a wild beast they tore him to pieces on Mount Cithaeron. 
The story is told in the Bacchanals of Euripides and the 
twenty-sixth Idyll of Theocritus, the two sources used by 
Ovid in the third book of the ' ' Metamorphoses. ' ' 

9, 36 — Ausonius . . . Manilius. Macaulay is using his favorite 
device, antithesis, to obtain a striking effect. Two quite un- 
important names are balanced against the greatest in Latin 
literature. Ausonius was a fourth century poet, interesting 
because of some signs of an un-Eoman sympathy with 
nature, but on the whole of little value. The Astronomica of 
Manilius (a poet and astronomer of uncertain date), from 
which Addison quotes once, is read now even less than Auso- 
nius or Claudian, though an English translation was pub- 
lished in Addison's own time (1697). 

10, 4— In the gorge . . . Silius Italicus. Addison would 
doubtless answer here fairly enough that the lines quoted 
from Silius Italicus are far briefer and more to the point 
than anything in the historians. ' ' The way from Florence 
to Bologna, ' ' he says, ' ' runs over several ranges of moun- 
tains, and is the worst road, I believe, of any over the Ap- 
ennines; for this was my third time of crossing them. It 
gave me a lively idea of Silius Italicus 's description of 
Hannibal 's march. 

"Prom steep to steep the troops advanced with pain, 
In hopes at last the topmost cliff to gain ; 
But still by new ascents the mountain grew, 
And a fresh toil presented to their view." 

Silius Italicus was an eminent Roman of the first century, 
author of a long and not particularly interesting epic of the 
Second Punic war, from which the above lines are taken. 

10, 14— Lucan. A poet of the first century. His only 
extant work is the Pharsalia, an heroic poem based on the 
wars of Caesar and Pompey. 

11, 1 — Cock-Lane ghost. A famous imposture with ghostly 
knockings and a ll white lady" by which a man named Par- 



94 NOTES 

sons thrilled London for a time in 1762. Dr. Johnson was 
among the deceived. See Macanlay 's essay on Dr. Johnson. 

11, 2 — Ireland's " Vortigern. " "Vortigern and Eowena" 
was the title of a play published by William Henry Ireland 
in 1796 and attributed by him — with other forged manu- 
scripts of various kinds — to Shakespeare. They imposed on 
everyone for a time, but the fraud was soon exposed. 

11, 3 — Thundering Legion. The story ran that during a 
battle between the Roman army under Marcus Aurelius and 
the Germans a thunder-storm came and struck panic into the 
German host in answer to the prayers of a legion composed 
of Christians, — thereafter called the Thundering Legion. On 
the triumphal column of Marcus Aurelius still standing in 
Rome is a relief showing Jupiter hurling thunderbolts at the 
dismayed barbarian army and sending refreshing rain to the 
Romans. This Addison took as proof of the story. But as 
a friendly critic pointed out in Addison 's own time the relief 
only proves the battle and the thunder-storm, not the 
legion of Christians or its prayers. 

11, 5— Abgarus. Eusebius (bishop of Caesarea, early fourth 
century) in the first book of his ''Ecclesiastical History" 
tells how Abgarus, king of the nations beyond the Euphrates, 
wrote to Jesus begging for relief from an incurable disease. 
Eusebius gives the letter with Christ's answer, and tells 
how at last the king was healed by a disciple. The story, 
interesting as it is, has long been regarded as a myth. 

11, 22 — aphorism . . . apophthegm. A very excusable con- 
fusion. ''Art is long and time is fleeting," expressing a 
principle or truth of a philosophic nature, is an aphorism; 
" Heaven helps those who help themselves" being, in a sense, 
a less lofty and more practical maxim, is an apophthegm. 

12, 22— "Jamque acies," etc. "And now appeared in 
the midst of his warriors the stately form of the Pygmy 
leader, who, dreadful in majesty, mighty in his advance, 
surpassed all in the vastness of his stature, towering abo-ve 
them half an arm 's length. ' ' 

13, 11 — Newdigate prize. A prize offered annually at 
Oxford for English verse. — Seatonian prize. A similar prize 
given at Cambridge. 

13, 34— Hoole. Hoole's translation of Tasso's epic of the 
first Crusade, ' ' Jerusalem Delivered, ' ' was published in 1763. 



NOTES 95 

15, 34— Rasselas. In Dr. Johnson's novel, "Prince Kasse- 
las, ' ' written to defray the expenses of his mother 's funeral. 

16, 20— The Revolution. In 1688, nearly forty years after 
the execution of Charles I, thirty years after the death of 
Cromwell, and twenty-eight after England had decided to try 
a Stuart king again, the long uncertainty of the country as 
to her government was ended, and James II was deposed, to 
be succeeded by an elected monarch, William III. This was 
the English Kevolution. It naturally resulted in the rise of the 
power of the people, and the decline of the power of the crown. 

18, 16— Countess . . . Versailles. The Kit Kat Club was, 
in Miss Aikin 's own words, ' ' that distinguished assemblage in 
which the great nobility and landed gentry composing the 
strength of the Whig party, mingled with the more cele- 
brated of the wits and men of letters who supported the 
same principles with their pens. ' ' By the rules of the Club 
each member, on admission, named some lady of his choice 
as his ' ' toast. ' ' Her name was then entered on the minutes 
and engraved, with lines in her honor, on a glass. These 
were the lines to Lady Manchester which will explain Macau- 
lay 's reference: — 

"While haughty Gallia's dames, that spread 
O'er their pale cheeks an artful red, 
Beheld this beauteous stranger there, 
In native charms divinely fair, 
Confusion in their looks they show'd, 
And with unborrow'd blushes glow'd." 

18, 28 — Racine. A great tragic poet of the age of Louis 
XIV. Within the last decade of his life, at the request of 
the king's wife, Madame de Maintenon, he wrote two sacred 
dramas, "Esther" (1689), and "Athalie" (1691). 

18, 30 — Dacier. A French classical scholar twelve years 
younger .than Eacine.— Athanasian. Athanasius was an or- 
thodox theologian of the fourth century. The Athanasian 
creed is concerned chiefly with the mystery of the Trinity. 

19, 22— Malbranche . . . Boileau. Malbranche was the 
foremost French philosopher of the age of Louis XIV, and 
Boileau the foremost satirist and critic. 

19, 26— " Leviathan." ''The Leviathan" of Thomas 
Hobbes (published in 1651) is a description of the origin and 
nature of the State. Incidentally it is a defence of absolute 
monarchy. 



96 NOTES 

21, 1— Livy . . . Pollio. Livy was a native of Padua, 
though he lived during the greater part of his life in Eome 
and wrote there. Pollio was a noble Roman soldier, author, 
and patron of literature, only fragments of whose works sur- 
vive. 

21, 13— Erasmus. A Dutch scholar, by far the greatest of 
his time (1465-1536). His writings are all in Latin, at 
that time the universal language of scholars.— Fracastorius. 
An Italian physician (1483-1553) who wrote several poems 
in Latin on medical subjects. 

21, 24— " Ne croyez pas, ' ' etc. * ' You must not think that I 
mean to condemn the Latin verses that you have sent me, 
written by one of your eminent University men. I have 
found them to be excellent, quite worthy of Vida and of 
Sannazar, but not of Horace and of Virgil." Vida was an 
Italian Latin poet of the age of the Renaissance (1480-1566) 
and Sannazaro a contemporary of his who wrote both Latin 
and Italian poems. 

22, 1— "Quid numeris," etc. Balbutire,— to stammer; patre 
Sicambro, — born of a Sicambrian father. The Sicambri were 
properly a German tribe east of the Rhine, but Boileau here 
doubtless uses the word in the sense of northern, non-Italisn, 
even — from the Roman point of view — barbarian. 

22, 5— Machinae Gesticulantes. "Dancing figures," or, in 
plain English, a puppet show. 

22, 6— Gerano-Pygmaeomachia. "Battle of the cranes 
and pygmies." These were the two best known of Addison's 
Latin poems. 

23, 14 — capuchin. The Capuchin friars are a branch of 
the order of Franciscan friars (St. Francis of Assisi, early 
thirteenth century), so-called from the capuce (or capuchon, 
a hood or cowl) which is their head-dress. 

23, 30 — Doria. A noble family of Genoa. Perhaps the 
greatest member of the house of Doria was Andrea Doria 
(1468-1560), for many years High Admiral in the service 
of France, and one of the greatest sea-fighters of his time. 

23, 31— Gothic. Speaking generally Gothic architecture, 
developed and perfected by the northern nations of Europe, 
is. characterized by vertical lines, the pointed arch, and wealth 
of decoration; in classical, architecture, which Addison 
greatly preferred, are found rather horizontal lines, the 



NOTES 97 

round arch, and simplicity. Cologne Cathedral and the 
Church of Notre Dame at Paris are Gothic. St. Peter's at 
Rome is classical. This cathedral at Milan is not pure 
Gothic, but it has the essential characteristics of long vertical 
lines rising to great height, pointed arches, and infinite adorn- 
ment in carving. 

25, 1 — St. Peter's . . . Pantheon. St. Peter's, built a little 
less than two hundred years before Addison saw it by 
Bramante and Michelangelo, was then and still is the 
largest church in the world. The Pantheon, built by Agrippa, 
the friend of Augustus, but greatly altered in later centuries, 
is probably the best preserved of all Roman temples. 

25, 21— Herculaneum . . . Pompeii. The excavation of the 
cities buried by the eruption of a.d. 79 was begun in 1755. 
More than half of Pompeii has yet to be uncovered. 

25, 22— Paestum. There are three Greek temples at 
Paestum, one of which, the Temple of Poseidon, is one of 
the finest surviving examples of pure Doric architecture, — 
second only, indeed, to the Parthenon at Athens. 

25, 26 — Salvator. Salvator Rosa, a great Italian painter 
of wild, savage landscapes, was born near Naples in 1615, 
and died at Rome in 1673. Little of his work was done at 
Naples. 

25, 27 — Vico. Another great Neapolitan, ranked as one of 
the foremost pioneers of historical criticism and one of the 
most original thinkers of modern times. His reputation in 
Addison 's time was by no means so high, however. 

25, 31 — Posilipo. The west end of Naples lies partly at 
the base and partly on the slope of the high ridge of 
Posilipo, which terminates in the cape of that name and sepa- 
rates the Bay of Naples from the famous Bay of Baiae. 
Through this ridge is cut a great tunnel of unrecorded age. 
' ' The common people of Naples believe it to have been 
wrought by magic, and that Virgil was the magician; who 
is in greater repute among the Neapolitans for having made 
the grotto, than the iEneid. ' ' So commented Addison him- 
self. The tunnel is nearly half a mile long and is used con- 
stantly as a highway for vehicles of all kinds. 

25, 32— Capreae. Macaulay uses the Roman name of the 
island called Capri on modern maps. It lies just at the 
entrance to the Bay of Naples. 



98 NOTES 

25, 36 — the great kingdom. For two centuries, i.e., since 
the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Naples had belonged 
to the kingdom of Spain. It was transferred from the 
crown of Spain to that of Austria by the treaty of Utrecht 
in 1713, twelve years after Addison's visit. 

26, 10— From Naples, etc. In the JEneid, Books VI and 
VII, Virgil tells of the journey of iEneas along the coast, 
and Addison quotes his descriptions of Cumse, the promontory 
of Circe (Homer's "isle iEsean, where dwelt Circe of the 
braided tresses," in Odyssey, Book X), and the mouth of 
the Tiber itself. Near Cumae, where Misenum stood in 
Virgil's time, JEneas found the body of his drowned com- 
panion Misenus and duly performed the funeral rites. Then 

"good iEneas ordered on the shore 
A stately tomb, whose top a trumpet bore, 
A soldier's falchion and a seaman's oar. 
Thus was his friend interred, and deathless fame 
Still to the lofty cape consigns his name." 

26, 24 — poured forth . . . tainted air. Macaulay refers to the 

poem published in the "Spectator" as a "Divine Ode, made 

by a gentleman on the conclusion of his travels. ' ' It 

begins: — 

"How are thy servants blest, O Lord! 
How sure is their defence! 
Eternal wisdom is their guide, 
Their help Omnipotence." 

27, 11 — ravages of the last war. The "last war" was 
that of the Grand Alliance — England, Holland, Austria, 
Spain, Savoy— undertaken in 1689 to check the ambition of 
Louis XIV. Catinat commanded the French forces in Italy 
against the Duke of Savoy, and compelled Savoy to make a 
separate peace in 1796, a year before a general peace was 
arranged by the Treaty of Eyswick. By the year 1700 a 
new danger had arisen. The king of Spain was dying, and was 
planning to bequeath his kingdom to the grandson of Louis. 
While Addison was in Paris this plan was realized and the 
bequest accepted by the king of France on behalf of his grand- 
son (see page 22). England's share in the renewal of the war 
for the balance of power was not certain until the following 
spring, when on the death of the exiled king James II Louis 
acknowledged his son as king of England. This insult deter- 
mined the English to war, and the war of the Spanish Sue- 



NOTES 99 

cession was begun under these conditions in 1701. Prince 
Eugene, in the service of Austria, and the Duke of Marl- 
borough were the greatest generals possessed by the allies, 
and far outshone any of the generals of France. 

27, 18— Manchester. See page 18. 

27, 22 — Mont Cenis. The old road used by Addison in 1701 
and by part of Napoleon's army in 1800 ran about 17 miles 
east of the railroad which now takes travellers to Italy by 
the great Mont Cenis tunnel. But it is the pass over the 
Great St. Bernard, the route taken by Napoleon himself in 
the famous crossing of 1800, or the Simplon, by which he 
built his great military road as a thoroughfare into Italy, 
that would remind us of the "power and genius of Napo- 
leon ' ' rather than the Mont Cenis. Perhaps for once Macau- 
lay 's usually infallible memory played him false. 

32, 23 — similitude of the Angel. The simile follows a de- 
scription of Marlborough guiding and controlling the storm 
of battle. 

"So when an angel by divine command 
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, 
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed, 
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; 
And pleas'd the Almighty's orders to perform, 
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm." 

33, 26— Sidonian. The Phoenicians, whose two greatest 
cities were Tyre and Sidon, were not merely the foremost 
sailors and merchants of their time, but were also supreme 
as craftsmen. See n Chronicles, II. 

33. 27— Thessalian breed. The best horses of Greece were 
bred in the plain of Thessaly. 

33, 32— Mamelukes. The Mamelukes were originally 
brought into Egypt as slaves in the thirteenth century. Of 
good fighting stock, chiefly Turk and Tartar, they came to 
be used as soldiers, and finally, discovering their superiority 
to the Egyptians, they became the rulers of the country. 
Even after the conquest of Egypt by the Turks in 1517 the 
Mamelukes regained their power, but were almost destroyed 
by Napoleon in the battle of the Pyramids, 1798, and at 
last completely annihilated by the great Pasha of Egypt, 
Mehemet Ali, in 1811. 

34, 10— Asdrubal . . . Nero. Hasdrubal, while hastening to 
the relief of his great brother Hannibal, was defeated and 



100 NOTES 

killed by Claudius Nero at the river Metaurus, 207 B.C. 
This battle is of course an important incident in the epic re- 
ferred to in note, 10, 4. 

36, 3— Victor Amadeus. Victor Amadeus II, Duke of 
Savoy since 1685, King of Sardinia in 1720, and ancestor 
of the present king of Italy. 

36, 6— Trojans and Rutulians. The war between JEneas 
and Turnus, king of the Rutuli, is narrated in the iEneid, 
books 7-12. 

36, 9— Faustina. Wife of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 

36, 29— Tasso . . . Apollinaris. Tasso ("Jerusalem De- 
livered") and Ariosto ("Orlando Furioso") were the two 
greatest epic poets of the Italian Eenaissance. Valerius 
Flaccus was a fifth-rate Koman poet of the time of Ves- 
pasian, and Sidonius Apollinaris a man of letters and poet 
of the fifth century. 

36, 31 — Ticin. The Ticino, where Hannibal fought his 
first important battle after crossing the Alps. 

36, 33— Albula . . . Martial. On his way (14 miles) from 
Kome to Tivoli Addison passed the "rivulet of Salforata, 
formerly called Albula, and smelt the stench that arises from 
its waters some time before I saw them. ' ' He mentions no 
arrangements for sulphur baths, but . such arrangements ex- 
isted in Roman times and do now. Martial was a Spanish 
Roman poet of the first century. 

36, 34 — Santa Croce. A famous church of Florence. 
Michelangelo is one of the "illustrious dead" who are 
buried there. 

36, 35 — Ravenna. A favorite residence of some of the 
last of the Roman emperors who reigned in Italy. Here 
Dante died and was buried in 1321. Dante himself loved to 
walk in the pine wood near the city, where a little later, as 
Boccaccio tells, the Spectre Huntsman in black armor and 
on a black horse was wont to pursue with hounds a lady who 
had in life driven him to suicide by her cruelty. 

36, 37 — Rimini . . . Francesca. Francesca da Rimini, who 
loved her husband's brother and was killed by her angry 
lord (about 1288), is immortalized in some of the most 
exquisite lines in Dante. See the Inferno, Canto V. 

37, 36— the Great Seal. The office of Lord Chancellor. 

38, 1— the Order of the Garter. The Order of the Garter is 



NOTES 101 

England's most distinguished order of knighthood, founded 
by Edward III about 1344-50. It consists of the sovereign, 
the Prince of Wales, and less than fifty knights companions. 

39, 29— Antrim and Aberdeenshire. Ireland and Scot- 
land. It must be remembered that Macaulay wrote before 
the advent of the telegraph. This statement could be made 
even more impressive now. 

40, 28— cassock and . . . pudding sleeves. These signify 
his connection with the Church. Swift, who is best known 
now as the author of il Gulliver's Travels," was in Addi- 
son's time the fiercest and immeasurably the ablest of the 
Tory pamphleteers. 

41, 14 — Nemesis. The goddess of justice, who especially 
punished human pride. Excessive good fortune might en- 
courage arrogance and so provoke Nemesis. Thus, thought 
the Greeks, a more moderate share of blessings is on the whole 
safer. 

41, 27 — Stella. Stella was Swift's name for his constant 
friend and correspondent, Miss Hester Johnson, to whom he 
possibly was married in 1716. Swift's letters to Stella form 
a storehouse of the literary and personal gossip of the age. 

42, 12 — Mr. Softly' s sonnet. Only a reading of these two 
papers entire will give point to Macaulay 's illustration. 
They may be found respectively in the ' ' Tatler, ' ' No. 163, 
and the " Spectator, " No. 568. 

42, 24— St. Paul's in Covent Garden. Not the Cathedral, 
but a smaller church dating from the early seventeenth century. 
Covent Garden, now in the heart of London, is the old Con- 
vent Garden of the monks of Westminster. Its name is 
perpetuated in Covent Garden Market, probably the largest 
vegetable market in the world. 

43, 24— Warburton . . . Hurd. Two eminent bishops of the 
eighteenth century. Warburton was the older, and at a time 
when he was regarded as the foremost theologian of the country 
he aided Hurd to his first important advancement. Hurd 
never forgot the favor, and though he finally equalled his 
patron in reputation he retained his veneration for the 
older divine, and published his works in 1788. 

44, 11— Namby Pamby. A nickname conferred on Phil- 
lipps by Henry Carey and adopted by Pope in ridicule of his 
" infantile style." 



102 NOTES 

45, 6 — Johnson . . . Savage. For Johnson's connection 
with Savage see Macaulay's essay on Johnson. 

45, 35 — Bayle's Dictionary. Bayle was a noted French 
philosopher and skeptic whose Dictionnaire Mstorique et 
critique (1696) was a forerunner of the great encyclopaedia 
of the next century. 

46, 6— Tickell. Tickell and Steele were by all odds the 
most eminent of this group of Addison's worshippers. 
Tickell edited Addison's works in 1721, and his finest work 
was an elegy to his friend prefixed to that edition. 

46, 13 — rival bulls in Virgil. Their fight is described in 
the Georgics m, 209-241. 

48, 3 — Will's . . . Grecian. Two famous coffee-houses. Will's 
— so named from William Urwin, its proprietor — was in 
Covent Garden, and was a favorite resort of wits and poets, 
its reputation being due first to the patronage of Dryden. 
The Grecian, a favorite rendezvous for lawyers and men of 
learning, derived its name from a Greek proprietor named 
Constantine. 

48, 23 — Paul Pry . . . Pickwick. Pickwick of Dickens's 
1 ' Pickwick Papers. ' ' Paul Pry was the hero of a popular 
comedy by John Poole which was produced in 1825. 

49, 23— half German jargon. A little hit doubtless at 
Carlyle and the even more rugged style of his imitators. 

49, 28— Menander. An Athenian writer of comedy (about 
342-291 B.C.), only fragments of whose plays have survived. 

49, 30— Cowley. An English poet (1618-1667) of great 
reputation in his own day, but whose fame declined after his 
death.— Butler. The author of the satiric poem ' ' Hudibras ' ' 
(1663-78) directed against the Puritans. 

49, 32— Sir Godfrey Kneller. A German artist (1646- 
1723) who made his home in England after 1675 and was 
one of the best portrait painters in England in Addison's 
time. 

49, 36— numerous fictions . . . poet. A curious instance of 
Macaulay's limitations as a critic. Discuss in class, note the 
points which attract Macaulay, and compare Introduction. 

50, 37— commination service. The service in the Church 
of England used after the Litany on Ash Wednesday, con- 
sisting of a denunciation (comminari, to threaten) of sinners 
and an exhortation to repentance. The aptness of the illus- 



NOTES 103 

tration lies in the peculiar solemnity of the eommination 
service. 

51, 9 — Jack Pudding. A grotesque clown in English folk- 
stories.— Cynic. The Cynics were a school of philosophers 
who taught that virtue lay in self-control, and that pleasure 
sought for pleasure's sake was an evil. Hence the modern 
meaning — one who looks sourly at the pleasure of others. 

51, 17 — Abbe Coyer. A contemporary of Voltaire who died 
in 1782. This letter is contained in a vivacious collection of 
half -mocking essays entitled Bagatelles Morales. 

52, 5 — Mephistopheles. The spirit of evil in the story of 
Faust. He jests, but his jests have always a hint of terror 
or evil. 

52, 6 — Puck. The merry sprite of English folk lore, often 
called Robin Goodf ellow. See ' ' A Midsummer Night 's 
Dream. ' ' 

52, 7— Soame Jenyns. An English prose writer of the 
eighteenth century, much respected in his time. 

52, 29 — Bettesworth. A member of the Irish bar who was 
referred to with savage contempt by Swift in some party verses. 
—Franc de Pompignan. A French writer who at his admis- 
sion to the French Academy pronounced a discourse in favor 
of Christianity. This drew on him the attacks of the fore- 
most wits of his time, including Voltaire, and their fierce 
ridicule finally drove him from Paris. 

53, 2 — Jeremy Collier. An older contemporary of Addison, 
and a well-known divine. His • ' Short View of the Immo- 
rality and Prof aneness of the English Stage ' ' was published 
in 1698. 

53, 10— Hale . . . Vanbrugh. Two of the greatest divines 
of Addison's time set against two of the greatest and most 
immoral of contemporary comedy writers. 

53, 25— Tom Folio, etc. These may all be found by 
running through the volumes of the ' ' Tatler, ' ' Nqs. 158, 
163, 155, 220, 249, 250, and 254. 

53, 36 — Sacheverell. An old Magdalen friend of Addi- 
son's. His impeachment by the Whig government was on 
account of a violent Divine Eight sermon. The government 
was at that time intensely unpopular, and the prosecution of 
Sacheverell made him for the moment a popular idol. 

54, 30 — Versailles and Marli. At Versailles and Marly, 



104 NOTES 

a few miles out of Paris, Louis XIV built two splendid 
palaces. That at Marly was destroyed during the Revolution, 
but the palace of Versailles still stands as one of the most 
interesting and magnificent monuments of the French mon- 
archy. 

55, 1 — Godolphin . . . staff. The white staff is the symbol 
of the Treasurer's office. The Prime Minister of England 
usually holds the office of First Lord of the Treasury. 

55, 30 — Walcheren. The expedition sent to Walcheren with 
the purpose of destroying the docks and shipping of Antwerp 
(1808) was perhaps the most disastrous and resultless episode 
of the long war with Napoleon. 

58, 6— Child's ... St. James's. Two of the London coffee- 
houses, — the former, in St. Paul's Churchyard, especially 
patronized by clergymen, and the latter a great rallying 
place of Whig politicians in Pall Mall. 

59, 1 — Spring Gardens. Now Vauxhall, a famous public 
resort on the Thames near Westminster, used as a place of 
amusement from the time of Charles II almost to our own 
day, — about two centuries. Addison uses both names in his 
account of the visit to Spring Garden with Sir Roger, for 
which see No. 383 of the ' ' Spectator. ' ' 

59, 2— Mohawks. Riotous youths who made the streets of 
London a terror to all night wanderers. They are frequently 
referred to in the ' ' Spectator. ' ' See Nos. 324, 335, 347. 

59, 4 — "Distressed Mother." A play by Addison's friend 
Ambrose Phillipps ("Namby Pamby"), published in 1711. 

59, 37— Lucian's Auction of Lives. One of the dialogues 
of Lucian of Samosata (second century a.d.) in which the gods 
sell the philosophers by auction. 

59, 38 — Scherezade. The princess whose tales to her hus- 
band constitute the ' ' Arabian Nights Entertainments. ' ' 

60, 2— La Bruyere. A French moralist of the age of 
Louis XIV. 

60, 7— Massillon. A famous French preacher of the age of 
Louis XIV. 

60, 31 — "Chevy Chace." One of the most famous of old 
English ballads, dealing with the battle of Otterburn. It 
is most easily accessible, perhaps, in Percy's "Reliques of 
Ancient English Poetry. ' ' 

61, 8 — bohea. (bo-hee). The name given in the beginning 



NOTES 105 

of the eighteenth century to the finest kinds of black tea. It 
derives its name from the district in China from which such 
teas were imported. 

61, 35— Nestor Ironside. The name assumed by Steele 
when he started the ' ' Guardian. ' ' Miss Lizards. The daugh- 
ters of Lady Lizard; see the "Guardian," No. 155. 

62, 17— Sempronius . . . liberties of Rome. During the 
last five years of Julius Caesar's life (49-44 B.C.), he prac- 
tically overthrew the rule of the Senate and ended the re- 
public. Of his opponents Cato was the most obstinate, and 
after Caesar's decisive victory at Thapsus (46 B.C.), he com- 
mitted suicide. In Addison 's play Sempronius is a hypo- 
critical Senator who is false to his republican associates. 

62, 25— Macready. Wm. Charles Macready (1793-1873), 
a noted English tragedian, a fine impressive player and a 
conscientious student of his art. 

62, 27— birthday. The birthday of the reigning sovereign, 
kept as a national holiday. 

62, 38 — Jonathan's and Garraway's. Two more of the 
London coffee-houses, — Jonathan's being the special resort of 
stockjobbers, the precursor indeed of the present stock ex- 
change, and Garraway's of financiers and merchants. 

63, 11— Kit Cat. See Note to 18, 16. 

63, 12— October. "The October Club was of a hundred 
and fifty Tory squires, Parliament men, who met at the Bell 
Tavern, in King Street, Westminster, and there nourished 
patriotism with October ale. "— H. Morley. Note to the 
"Spectator," No. 9. 

64, 2— Bolingbroke. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke 
(1678-1751). A leader of the Tories and the most brilliant 
figure in the politics of Queen Anne's reign. On the acces- 
sion of George I he was implicated in Jacobite schemes and 
became an exile. The point of the action alluded to lies in 
the fact that the war of the Spanish Succession was a Whig 
war, and Marlborough a Whig general. When the Tories 
came into office the war was closed and Marlborough's career 
ended. 

64, 15— Act at Oxford. In the Universities a thesis pub- 
licly maintained by a candidate for a degree or to show a 
student's proficiency. At Oxford the Act took place early 
in July ("The New English Dictionary"). 



106 NOTES 

64, 30— "Atharie." A French tragedy by Racine. See 
18, 28. — "Saul." An Italian tragedy by Alfieri. 

64, 31 — "Cinna." A French tragedy by Corneille. 

65, 4— Dennis. John Dennis (1657-1734). An English 
writer and critic. He was a spendthrift with a bad temper 
and made many enemies by his attacks on authors and public 
men. 

66, 15— Horace's imagery and his own. "Dente lupus, 
cornu taurus petit; . . . neque calce lupus quenquam, neque 
dente petit bos, ' ' in the ' ' Satires, ' ' Book n, Sat. i. In 
Pope's translation of this satire the same idea is expressed 
thus: — 

"Its proper power to hurt each creature feels; 

Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels ; 
'Tis a bear's talent not to kick, but hug; 

And no man wonders he's not stung by Pug." 

66, 21— the shilling gallery. The cheapest seats in the 
theatre, where one might expect to find the least exacting 
critics. 

66, 23— peripetia. Gr. Trepinereia, — the sudden reverse of 
the situation in a tragedy on which the outcome depends. 

68, 15— the white staff. Symbol of the Lord High Treas- 
urer's office, carrying with it in this case the Premiership. 
The incident mentioned was the critical stroke in a tangled 
and momentous political game. Bolingbroke had believed 
himself strong enough not only to keep the Whigs out of 
power but to dominate his own Tory colleagues, including his 
rival and associate, Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Shrewsbury, 
Avho though a Tory was no Jacobite. But the overthrow of 
Harley, while it cleared the way for Bolingbroke, was a tem- 
porary shock to the party, and Anne's sudden prostration by 
apoplexy gave the Whigs — still powerful and watchful — a 
chance to ally themselves with those Tory lords who were hos- 
tile to their amb/tious leader and favorable to the Protestant 
succession. The Queen's own distrust of Bolingbroke made 
possible the result stated in the text, and his plans were per- 
manently frustrated. 

69, 30— Swift. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), a celebrated 
humorist and satirist, born in Dublin, where in after years he 
was Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Macaulay spoke of him 
in his early days as a "poor scholar under whose plain garb 



NOTES 107" 

and ungainly deportment was concealed some of the choicest 
gifts that have ever been bestowed on any of the children of 
men. ' ' 

70, 33— hereditary guests in the Iliad. The Greek Dio- 
medes and the Trojan Glaucus in the Iliad vi, 11. 226-30. 

71, 35— household. The royal household. 

72, 20— Squire Western. A jovial fox-hunting gentleman 
in Fielding 's ' ' Tom Jones. ' ' 

73, 21— Sylphs and Gnomes, etc. The sprites that flutter 
about Belinda, the heroine of the poem* 

73, 23— Rosicrucian mythology. The Rosicrucians were 
believed to be a philosophic secret society in Germany of the 
fifteenth century. The machinery of ' ■ The Rape of the 
Lock" — the part played by deities, angels, demons — Pope 
said he founded on * ' the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits. ' ' 

74, 12— Tasso. Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), a celebrated 
Italian poet. The work by which he is best known is the epic 
"Jerusalem Delivered." Akenside. Mark Akenside (1721- 
1770). An eighteenth century poet, who is almost forgotten 
now, but whose best known work is doubtless ' ' The Pleasures 
of the Imagination. ' ' 

76, 27— Rowe. Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). Poet-laureate 
under George I. 

76, 29— Congreve. William Congreve (1670-1729). An 
English dramatic poet. "The peculiar excellence of Con- 
greve is his wit, incessantly sparkling from the lips of al- 
most every character." — Hallam. 

77, 16— "Satirist." . . . "Age." Party sheets of Macau- 
lay's time long since dead. 

79, 26— Sir Peter Teazle . . . Surface. Characters in 
Sheridan 's ' - School for Scandal. ' ' 

80, 22— Nell G-wynn. A favorite of Charles II. 

80, 23— Holland House. On the western edge of Kensing- 
ton, London. It was built in 1607 by John Thorpe for Sir 
Walter Cope, and it has been enlarged since. Though now in 
a populous part of London it retains its large and beautiful 
gardens. Under the third Lord Holland (1705-1774) the 
house became an intellectual centre not only for England but 
for the world. Sheridan, Byron, Sir Humphrey Davy, Wash- 
ington Irving, Talleyrand, Madame de Stael and Macaulay 
were among those entertained there. 



108 NOTES 

81, 7 — Chloe. A country maiden in love with Daphnis in 
the Greek romance of ' ' Daphnis and Chloe ' ' by Longus, writ- 
ten in the fifth century. Adopted by Sidney as the name of a 
shepherdess in ' ' Arcadia, ' ' hence poetically any shepherdess, 

81, 9— Lycidas. In 1637 Milton's friend Edward King, on 
his way to Ireland was wrecked and drowned off the Welsh 
coast. Under the name of Lycidas he was mourned by Milton 
in one of the three most beautiful and most famous elegies 
in English poetry. 

82, 11— Bourne. Vincent Bourne (1698-1747), an English 
scholar and writer whose Latin poems are among the most 
elegant of modern times. 

82, 22— Joseph Hume. Hume (1777-1835) was a states- 
man who made it the chief business of his public life to guard 
the financial interests of the country against extravagance 
and peculation. He made it his custom to challenge every 
item of government expenditure and if possible bring it to 
a vote. 

85, 21— "Duenna." A comic opera by Sheridan produced 
in 1775 at Co vent Garden Theatre. 

86, 19— Gay. John Gay (1685-1732), an English poet 
best known as the author of "Fables" and "The Beggars ' 
Opera. ' ' 

88, 10— Jerusalem Chamber. A room on the southwest 
corner of Westminster Abbey, built originally as a guest 
chamber for the Abbot 's House. It probably derived its name 
from tapestry pictures of the History of Jerusalem with which 
it was hung. Sir Isaac Newton and Congreve lay in state here 
as well as Addison. Cf. Shakespeare, 2. ' ' Henry IV,' ' iv, iv. 

89, 14— Poets' Corner. The southern end of the south 
transept of Westminster Abbey. The name is first mentioned 
by Goldsmith. Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Tennyson and 
Browning are buried there, and there are monuments to many 
other poets. 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, one of the most eminent English 
writers of the eighteenth century, was the son of 
Michael Johnson, who was, at the beginning of that 
century, a magistrate of Lichfield, and a bookseller 
of great note in the midland counties. Michael's 5 
abilities and attainments seem to have been considerable. 
He was so well acquainted with the contents of the volumes 
which he exposed to sale, that the country rectors of 
Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought him an oracle 
on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, 10 
indeed, there was a strong religious and political sym- 
pathy. He was a zealous churchman, and, though he 
had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the 
oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last 
a Jacobite in heart. At his house, a house which is still is 
pointed out to every traveller who visits Lichfield, Samuel 
was born on the 18th of September, 1709. In the child, 
the physical, intellectual, and moral peculiarities which 
afterwards distinguished the man were plainly discern- 
ible; great muscular strength accompanied by much 20 
awkwardness and many infirmities; great quickness of 
parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrasti- 
nation; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and 
irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a 
scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of 25 
medicine to remove. His parents were weak enough to 
believe that the royal touch was a specific for this 
malady. In his third year he was taken up to London, 
inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the court 

3 



4 MACAULAY 

chaplains, and stroked and presented with a piece of 
gold by Queen Anne. One of his earliest recollections 
was that of a stately lady in a diamond stomacher and 
a long black hood. Her hand was applied in vain. The 
5 boy's features, which were originally noble and not 
irregular, were distorted by his malady. His cheeks 
were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of 
one eye; and he saw but very imperfectly with the other. 
But the force of his mind overcame every impediment. 

10 Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge with such 
ease and rapidity that at every school to which he was 
sent he was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to 
eighteen he resided at home, and was left to his own de- 
vices. He learned much at this time, though his studies 

15 were without guidance and without plan. He ransacked 
his father's shelves, dipped into a multitude of books, 
read what was interesting, and passed over what was 
dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired little or 
no useful knowledge in such a way : but much that 

20 was dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel. 
He read little Greek; for his proficiency In that lan- 
guage was not such that he could take much pleasure 
in the masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. But 
he had left school a good Latinist, and he soon ac- 

25 quired, in the large and miscellaneous library of 
which he now had the command, an extensive know- 
ledge of Latin literature. That Augustan delicacy 
of taste which is the boast of the great public schools 
of England he never possessed. But he was early 

30 familiar with some classical writers who were quite 
unknown to the best scholars in the sixth form at 
Eton. He was peculiarly attracted by the works of 
the great restorers of learning. Once, while search- 
ing for some apples, he found a huge folio volume of 

35 Petrarch's works. The name excited his curiosity; 
and he eagerly devoured hundreds of pages. Indeed, 
the diction and versification of his own Latin compo- 
sitions show that he had paid at least as much atten- 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 5 

tion to modern copies from the antique as to the 
original models. 

While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his 
family was sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael 
Johnson was much better qualified to pore upon books, 5 
and to talk about them, than to trade in them. His 
business declined; his debts increased; it was with 
difficulty that the daily expenses of his household 
were defrayed. It was out of his power to support 
his son at either university: but a wealthy neighbor 10 
offered assistance; and, in reliance on promises which 
proved to be of very little value, Samuel was entered 
at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young 
scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, 
they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and 15 
eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive 
and curious information which he had picked up dur- 
ing many months of desultory but not unprofitable 
study. On the first day of his residence he surprised 
his teachers by quoting Macrobius; and one of the 20 
most learned among them declared, that he had never 
known a freshman of equal attainments. 

At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three 
years. He was poor, even to raggedness; and his 
appearance excited a mirth and a pity, which were 25 
equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was 
driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the 
sneering looks which the members of that aristocrati- 
cal society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some chari- 
table person placed a new pair at his door; but he 30 
spurned them away in a fury. Distress made him, 
not servile, but reckless and ungovernable. No opu- 
lent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, 
could have treated the academical authorities with more 
gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to 35 
be seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now 
adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, 
over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty 



6 MACAULAY 

linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed 
ascendency. In every mutiny against the discipline 
of the college he was the ringleader. Much was 
pardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished 

5 by abilities and acquirements. He had early made 
himself known by turning Pope's "Messiah" into Latin 
verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were not ex- 
actly Virgilian; but the translation found many ad- 
mirers, and was read with pleasure by Pope himself. 

10 The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the 
ordinary course of things, have become a Bachelor of 
Arts; but he was at the end of his resources. Those 
promises of support on which he had relied had not 
been kept. His family could do nothing for him. 

15 His debts to Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, 
yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731, 
he was under the necessity of quitting the university 
without a degree. In the following winter his father 
died. The old man left but a pittance; and of that 

20 pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the 
support of his widow. The property to which Samuel 
succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds. 

His life, during the thirty years which followed, was 
one hard struggle with poverty. The misery of that 

25 struggle needed no aggravation, but was aggravated 
by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound 
mind. Before the young man left the university, his 
hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly 
cruel form. He had become an incurable hypochon- 

30 driac. He said long after that he had been mad all 
his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, 
eccentricities less strange than his have often been 
thought grounds sufficient for absolving felons, and 
for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, 

35 his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes 
terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner- 
table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and 
twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing- 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 7 

room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's 
Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion 
to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather 
than see the hateful place. He would set his heart 
on touching every post on the streets through which 5 
he walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he 
would go back a hundred yards and repair the omis- 
sion. Under the influence of his disease, his senses 
became morbidly torpid, and his imagination mor- 
bidly active. At one time he would stand poring on 10 
the town clock without being able to tell the hour. 
At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who 
was many miles off, calling him by his name. But 
this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took 
possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his 15 
views of human nature and of human destiny. Such 
wretchedness as he endured has driven many men 
to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he 
was under no temptation to commit suicide. He was 
sick of life; but he was afraid of death; and he shud- 20 
dered at every sight or sound which reminded him of 
the inevitable hour. In religion he found but little com- 
fort during his long and frequent fits of dejection; 
for his religion partook of his own character. The 
light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a 25 
direct line, or with its own pure splendor. The rays 
had to struggle through a disturbing medium; they 
reached him refracted, dulled and discolored by the 
thick gloom which had settled on his soul; and, though 
they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too 30 
dim to cheer him. 

With such infirmities of body and of mind, this 
celebrated man was left, at two-and-twenty, to fight 
his way through the world. He remained during 
about five years in the midland counties. At Lich- 35 
field, his birth-place and his early home, he had 
inherited some, friends and acquired others. He was 
kindly noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay officer of 



8 MACAULAY 

noble family, who happened to be quartered there. 
Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical 
court of the diocese, a man of distinguished parts, 
learning, and knowledge of the world, did himself 
5 honor by patronizing the young adventurer, whose 
repulsive person, unpolished manners, and squalid 
garb, moved many of the petty aristocracy of the 
neighborhood to laughter or to disgust. At Lich- 
field, however, Johnson could find no way of earning 

10 a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school 
in Leicestershire; he resided as a humble companion 
in the house of a country gentleman; but a life of 
dependence was insupportable to his haughty spirit. 
He repaired to Birmingham, and there earned a few 

15 guineas by literary drudgery. In that town he 
printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and 
long forgotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia. He 
then put forth proposals for publishing by subscription 
the poems of Politian, with notes containing a history 

20 of modern Latin verse; but subscriptions did not 
come in; and the volume never appeared. 

While leading this vagrant and miserable life, John- 
son fell in love. The object of his passion was Mrs. 
Elizabeth Porter, a widow who had children as old as 

25 himself. To ordinary spectators, the lady appeared to 
be a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch 
thick, dressed in gaudy colors, and fond of exhibit- 
ing provincial airs and graces which were not exactly 
those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, 

30 however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight 
was too weak to distinguish ceruse from natural bloom, 
and who had seldom or never been in the same room 
with a woman of real fashion, his Titty, as he called 
her, was the most beautiful, graceful, and accomplished 

35 of her sex. That his admiration was unfeigned can- 
not be doubted; for she was as poor as himself. She 
accepted, with a readiness which did her little 
honor, the addresses of a suitor who might have been 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 9 

her son. The marriage, however, in spite of occasional 
wranglings, proved happier than might have been 
expected. The lover continued to be under the 
illusions of the wedding-day till the lady died in her 
sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed an 5 
inscription extolling the charms of her person 
and of her manners; and when, long after her decease, 
he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with 
a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, "Pretty 
creature !" 10 

His marriage made it necessary for him to exert 
himself more strenuously than he had hitherto done. 
He took a house in the neighborhood of his native 
town, and advertised for pupils. But eighteen months 
passed away; and only three pupils came to his 15 
academy. Indeed, his appearance was so strange, and 
his temper so violent, that his schoolroom must have 
resembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdry painted 
grandmother whom he called his Titty well qualified 
to make provision for the comfort of young gentlemen. 20 
David Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, 
many years later, to throw the best company of 
London into convulsions of laughter by mimicking the 
endearments of this extraordinary pair. 

At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his 25 
age, determined to seek his fortune in the capital as a 
literary adventurer. He set out with a few- guineas, 
three acts of the tragedy of "Irene" in manuscript, and 
two or three letters of introduction from his friend 
Walmesley. 30 

Never, since literature became a calling in England, 
had it been a less gainful calling than at the time 
when Johnson took up his residence in London. In 
the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit 
was sure to be munineently rewarded by the govern- 35 
ment. The least that he could expect was a pension 
or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude 
for politics, he might hope to be a member of Parlia- 



10 MACAULAY 

ment, a Lord of the Treasury, an Ambassador, a 
Secretary of State. It would be easy, on the other 
hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth 
century of whom the least successful has received 

5 forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But 
Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary 
part of the dreary interval which separated two ages 
of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish un- 
der the patronage of the great, and had not begun 

10 to flourish under the patronage of the public. One 
man of letters, indeed, Pope, had acquired by his pen 
what was then considered as a handsome fortune, and 
lived on a footing of equality with nobles and minis- 
ters of state. But this was a solitary exception. 

15 Even an author whose reputation was established, and 
whose works were popular, such an author as Thom- 
son, whose "Seasons" were in every library, such an 
author as Fielding, whose "Pasquin" had had a greater 
run than any drama since "The Beggar's Opera," was 

20 sometimes glad to obtain, by pawning his best coat, 
the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop underground, 
where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, 
on the back of a Newfoundland dog. It is easy, there- 
fore, to imagine what humiliations and privations 

25 must have awaited the novice who had still to earn a 
name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson 
applied for eniplojnnent measured with a scornful eye 
that athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, 
"You had better get a porter's knot, and cany 

30 trunks." Nor was the advice bad, for a porter was 
likely to be as plentifully fed and as comfortably lodged, 
as a poet. 

Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson 
was able to form any literary connection from which 

35 he could expect more than bread for the day which was 
passing over him. He never forgot the generosity' 
with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, 
relieved his wants during this time of trial. "Harry 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 11 

Hervey," said the old philosopher many years later, 
"was a vicious man; but he was very kind to me. If 
you call a dog Hervey I shall love him." At Hervey's 
table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were 
made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he 5 
dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny 
worth of meat, and a pennyworth of bread, at an 
alehouse near Drury Lane. 

The effect of the privations and sufferings which he 
endured at this time was discernible to the last in his 10 
temper and his deportment. His manners had never 
been courtly. They now became almost savage. 
Being frequently under the necessity of wearing 
shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed 
sloven. Being often very hungry when he sate down 15 
to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with 
ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and 
even at the tables of the great, the sight of food 
affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. 
His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordi- 20 
naries and alamode beefshops, was -far from delicate. 
Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a 
hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made 
with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such vio- 
lence that his veins swelled, and the moisture broke 25 
out on his forehead. The affronts which his poverty 
emboldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to 
him would have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, 
but made him rude even to ferocity. Unhappily the 
insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardon- 30 
able, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him 
into societies where he was treated with courtesy and 
kindness. He was repeatedly provoked into striking 
those who had taken liberties with him. All the suf- 
ferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from 35 
talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the 
most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who pro- 
claimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by 



12 MACAULAY 

the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Har- 
leian Library. 

About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in 
London, he was fortunate enough to obtain regular em- 
5 ployment from Cave, an enterprising and intelligent book- 
seller, who was proprietor and editor of the "Gentleman's 
Magazine." That journal, just entering on the ninth 
year of its long existence, was the only periodical work 
in the kingdom which then had what would now be called 

10 a large circulation. It was, indeed, the chief source of 
parliamentary intelligence. It was not then safe, even 
during a recess, to publish an account of the proceedings 
of either House without some disguise. Cave, however, 
ventured to entertain his readers with what he called 

15 "Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput." 
France was Blef uscu ; London was Mildendo ; pounds were 
sprugs: the Duke of Newcastle was the Nardac Secre- 
tary of State: Lord Hardwicke was the Hurgo Hickrad; 
and William Pulteney was Wingul Pulnub. To write 

20 the speeches was, during several years, the business of 
Johnson. He was generally furnished with notes, meagre 
indeed, and inaccurate, of what had been said; but some- 
times he had to find arguments and eloquence both for 
the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a 

25 Tory, not from rational conviction — for his serious 
opinion was that one form of government was just as 
good or as bad as another— but from mere passion, 
such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues, or 
the Blues of the Roman circus against the Greens. In 

30 his infancy he had heard so much talk about the villanies 
of the Whigs, and the dangers of the Church, that he 
had become a furious partisan when he could scarcely 
speak. Before he was three he had insisted on being 
taken to hear Sacheverell preach at Lichfield Cathedral, 

35 and had listened to the sermon with as much respect, 
and probably with as much intelligence, as any Stafford- 
shire squire in the congregation. The work which had 
been begun in the nursery had been completed by the 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 13 

university. Oxford, when Johnson resided there, was 
the most Jacobitical place in England; and Pembroke 
was one of the most Jacobitical colleges in Oxford. The 
prejudices which he brought up to London were scarcely 
less absurd than those of his own Tom Tempest. 5 
Charles II and James II were two of the best kings 
that ever reigned. Laud, a poor creature who never did, 
said, or wrote anything indicating more than the ordinary 
capacity of an old woman, was a prodigy of parts and 
learning over whose tomb Art and Genius still continued 10 
to weep. Hampden deserved no more honorable name 
than that of "the zealot of rebellion." Even the ship 
money, condemned not less decidedly by Falkland and 
Clarendon than by the bitterest Roundheads, Johnson 
would not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional 15 
impost. Under a government, the mildest that had ever 
been known in the world, under a government which 
allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech 
and action, he fancied that he was a slave ; he assailed the 
ministry with obloquy which refuted itself, and regretted 20 
the lost freedom and happiness of those golden days in 
which a writer who had taken but one-tenth part of the 
license allowed to him would have been pilloried, mangled 
with the shears, whipped at the cart's tail, and flung into a 
noisome dungeon to die. He hated dissenters and stock- 25 
jobbers, the excise and the army, septennial parliaments, 
and continental connections. He long had an aversion to 
the Scotch, an aversion of which he could not remember 
the commencement, but which, he owned, had probably 
originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation 30 
during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what 
manner debates on great party questions were likely to 
be reported by a man whose judgment was so much dis- 
ordered by party spirit. A show of fairness was indeed 
necessary to the prosperity of the "Magazine." But 35 
Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved 
appearances, he had taken care that the Whig dogs should 
not have the best of it; and, in fact, every passage which 



14 MACAULAY 

has lived, every passage which bears the marks of his 
higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of 
the opposition. 

A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these 

5 obscure labors, he published a work which at once placed 
him high among the writers of his age. It is probable 
that what he had suffered during his first year in London 
had often reminded him of some parts of that noble poem 
in which Juvenal has described the misery and degrada- 

10 tion of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' 
nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets 
of Rome. Pope's admirable imitations of Horace's 
"Satires and Epistles" had recently appeared, were in 
every hand, and were by many readers thought superior 

15 to the originals. What Pope had done for Horace, 
Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. The enterprise was 
bold, and yet judicious. For between Johnson and 
Juvenal there was much in common, much more cer- 
tainly than between Pope and Horace. 

20 Johnson's "London" appeared without his name in 
May, 1738. He received only ten guineas for this 
stately and vigorous poem : but the sale was rapid, and 
the success complete. A second edition was required 
within a week. Those small critics who are always 

25 desirous to lower established reputations ran about pro- 
claiming that the anonymous satirist was superior to 
Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature. 
It ought to be remembered, to the honor of Pope, that 
he joined heartily in the applause with which the appear- 

30 ance of a rival genius was welcomed. He made inquiries 
about the author of "London." Such a man, he said, 
could not long be concealed. The name was soon dis- 
covered; and Pope, with great kindness, exerted himself 
to obtain an academical degree and the mastership of a 

35 grammar school for the poor young poet. The attempt 
failed; and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack. 

I ^a It does not appear that these two men, the most eminent 
writer of the generation which was going out, and the 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 15 

most eminent writer of the generation which was coming 
in, ever saw each other. They lived in very different 
circles, one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by 
starving pamphleteers and indexmakers. Among John- 
son's associates at this time may be mentioned Boyse, 5 
who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses 
sitting up in bed with his arms through two holes in his 
blanket, who composed very respectable sacred poetry 
when he was sober, and who was at last run over by a 
hackney coach when he was drunk; Hoole, surnamed the 10 
metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending to his 
measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the board 
where he sate cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, 
George Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a 
humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and 15 
Christian fathers, indulged himself at night with literary 
and theological conversation at an alehouse in the city. 
But the most remarkable of the persons with whom at 
this time Johnson consorted was Richard Savage, an 
earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice, who had seen life 20 
in all its forms, who had feasted among blue ribands in 
Saint James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds' 
weight of irons on his legs in the condemned ward of 
Newgate. This man had, after many vicissitudes of for- 
tune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty. His 25 
pen had failed him. His patrons had been taken away 
by death, or estranged by the riotous profusion with 
which he squandered their bounty, and the ungrateful in- 
solence with which he rejected their advice. He now lived 
by begging. He dined on venison and champagne 30 
whenever he had been so fortunate as to borrow a guinea. 
If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the 
rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and 
lay down to rest under the Piazza of Covent Garden in 
warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could 35 
get to the furnace of a glass house. Yet, in his misery ; 
he was still an agreeable companion. He had an inex- 
haustible store of anecdotes about that gay and brilliant 






16 MACAULAY 

world from which he was now an outcast. He had 
observed the great men of both parties ^n hours of care- 
less relaxation, had seen the leaders of opposition 
without the mask of patriotism, and had heard the Prime 

5 Minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over 
decent. During some months Savage lived in the closest 
familiarity with Johnson; and then the friends parted, 
not without tears. Johnson remained in London to 
drudge for Cave. Savage went to the West of England, 

10 lived there as he had lived everywhere, and, in 1743, 

died, penniless and heart-broken, in Bristol gaol. 

/y Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was 

(strongly excited about his extraordinary character, and 

his not less extraordinary adventures, a life of him 

15 appeared widely different from the catchpenny lives of 
eminent men which were then a staple article of manu- 
facture in Grub Street. The style was indeed deficient 
in ease and variety; and the writer was evidently too 
partial to the Latin element of our language. But the 

20 little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No 
finer specimen of literary biography existed in any 
language, living or dead; and a discerning critic might 
have confidently predicted that the author was destined to 
be the founder of a new school of English eloquence. 

25 The "Life of Savage" was anonymous; but it was well 
known in literary circles that Johnson was the writer. 
During the three years which followed, he produced no 
important work; but he was not, and indeed could not be, 
idle. The fame of his abilities and learning continued 

30 to grow. Warburton pronounced him a man of parts 
and genius; and the praise of Warburton was then no 
light thing. Such was Johnson's reputation that, in 1747, 
several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in 
the arduous work of preparing a "Dictionary of the 

35 English Language," in two folio volumes. The sum which 
they agreed to pay him was only fifteen hundred guineas; 
and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of 
letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task. 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 17 

The prospectus of the "Dictionary" he addressed to 
the Earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been 
celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy 
of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. He was acknow- 
ledged to be the finest speaker in the House of Lords. 5 
He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous con- 
juncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity; 
and he had since become Secretary of State. He received 
Johnson's homage with the most winning affability, and 
requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in 10 
a very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous 
to see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, 
and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over 
the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentle- 
men, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange 15 
starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a 
scarecrow, and ate like a cormorant. During some time 
Johnson continued to call on his patron, but, after being 
repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not 
at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself 20 
at the inhospitable door. 

Johnson had flattered himself that he should have 
completed his "Dictionary" by the end of 1750; but it 
was not till 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes 
to the world. During the seven years which he passed 25 
in the drudgery of penning definitions and marking quota- 
tions for transcription, he sought for relaxation in 
literary labor of a more agreeable kind. In 1749 he 
published the "Va^ty_o£.,lIuman- Wishes," an excellent 
imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It is in truth 30 
not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the ancient 
or to the modern poet. The couplets in which the fall 
of Wolsey is described, though lofty and sonorous, are 
feeble when compared with the wonderful lines which 
bring before us all Rome in tumult on the day of the 35 
fall of Sejanus, the laurels on the doorposts, the white 
bull stalking towards the Capitol, the statues rolling down 
from their pedestals, the flatterers of the disgraced min- 



18 MACAULAY 

ister running to see him dragged with a hook through 
the streets, and to have a kick at his carcase before it 
is hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned too that in 
the concluding passage the Christian moralist has not 

5 made the most of his advantages, and has fallen decidedly 
short of the sublimity of his Pagan model. On the other 
hand, Juvenal's Hannibal must yield to Johnson's 
Charles; and Johnson's vigorous and pathetic enumera- 
tion of the miseries of a literary life must be allowed to 

10 be superior to Juvenal's lamentation over the fate of 
Demosthenes and Cicero. 

For the copyright of the "Vanity of Human Wishes" 
Johnson received only fifteen guineas. 

A few days after the publication of this poem, his 

15 tragedy, begun many years before, was brought on the 
stage. His pupil, David Garrick, had, in 1741, made his 
appearance on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had 
at once risen to the first place among actors, and was now, 
after several years of almost uninterrupted success, man- 

20 ager of Drury Lane Theatre. The relation between him 
and his old preceptor was of a very singular kind. They 
repelled each other strongly, and yet attracted each 
other strongly. Nature had made them of very different 
clay; and circumstances had fully brought out the natural 

25 peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Gar- 
rick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's 
temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so 
great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels 
carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with 

30 grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; 
and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled 
by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was 
applauding him, he could obtain from one morose 
cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely 

35 any compliment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two 
Lichfield men had so many early recollections in common, 
and sympathized with each other on so many points on 
which they sympathized with nobody else in the vast 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 19 

population of the capital, that, though the master was 
often provoked by the monkey-like impertinence of the 
pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the 
master, they remained friends till they were parted by 
death. Garrick now brought "Irene" out, with altera- 5 
tions sufficient to displease the author, yet not sufficient 
to make the piece pleasing to the audience. The public, 
however, listened, with little emotion, but with much 
civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After nine 
representations the play was withdrawn. It is, indeed, 10 
altogether unsuited to the stage, and, even when perused 
in the closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author. 
He had not the slightest notion what blank verse should 
be. A change in the last syllable of every other line would 
make the versification of the "Vanity of Human Wishes" 15 
closely resemble the versification of "Irene." The poet, 
however, cleared, by his benefit nights, and by the sale 
of the copyright of his tragedy, about three hundred 
pounds, then a great sum in his estimation. 

About a year after the representation of "Irene," he 20 
began to publish a series of short essays on morals, 
manners, and literature. This species of composition had 
been brought into fashion by the success of the "Tatler," 
and by the still more brilliant success of the "Spectator." 
A crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival 25 
Addison. The "Lay Monastery," the "Censor," the "Free- 
thinker," the "Plain Dealer," the "Champion," and other 
works of the same kind, had had their short day. None 
of them had obtained a permanent place in our literature; 
and they are now to be found only in the libraries of the 30 
curious. At length Johnson undertook the adventure in 
which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixth 
year after the appearance of the last number of the 
"Spectator" appeared the first number of the "Rambler." 
From March, 1750, to March, 1752, this paper continued 35 
to come out every Tuesday and Saturday. 

From the first the "Rambler" was enthusiastically ad- 
mired by a few eminent men. Richardson, when only 

I 



20 MACAULAY 

five numbers had appeared, pronounced it equal, if not 
superior to the "Spectator." Young and Hartley ex- 
pressed their approbation not less warmly. Bubb Doding- 
ton, among whose many faults indifference to the claims 

5 of genius and learning cannot be reckoned, solicited the 
acquaintance of the writer. In consequence probably of 
the good offices of Dodington, who was then the confiden- 
tial adviser of Prince Frederick, two of his Royal High- 
ness's gentlemen carried a gracious message to the 

10 printing office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester 
House. But these overtures seem to have been very coldly 
received. Johnson had had enough of the patronage of 
the great to last him all his life, and was not disposed to 
haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of 

15 Chesterfield. 

By the public the "Rambler" was at first very coldly 
received. Though the price of a number was only two- 
pence, the sale did not amount to five hundred. The 
profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the 

20 flying leaves were collected and reprinted they became 
popular. The author lived to see thirteen thousand copies 
spread over England alone. Separate editions were pub- 
lished for the Scotch and Irish markets. A large party 
pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect that 

25 in some essays it would be impossible for the writer 
himself to alter a single word for the better. Another 
party, not less numerous,- vehemently accused him of 
having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The 
best critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, 

30 too obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even 
to absurdity. But they did justice to the acuteness of 
his observations on morals and manners, to the constant 
precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to 
the weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious 

35 passages, and to the solemn yet pleasing humor of some 
of the lighter papers. On the question of precedence 
between Addison and Johnson, a question which, seventy 
years ago, was much disputed, posterity has pronounced 









SAMUEL JOHNSON 21 

a decision from which there is no appeal. Sir Roger, his 
chaplain and his butler, Will Wimble and Will Honey- 
comb, the Vision of Mirza, the Journal of the Retired 
Citizen, the Everlasting Club, the Dunmow Flitch, the 
Loves of Hilpah and Shalum, the Visit to the Exchange, 5 
and the Visit to the Abbey, are known to everybody. 
But many men and women, even of highly cultivated 
minds, are unacquainted with Squire Bluster and Mrs. 
Busy, Quisquilius and Venustulus, the Allegory of Wit 
and Learning, the Chronicle of the Revolutions of a 10 
Garret, and the sad fate of Aningait and Ajut. 

The last "Rambler" was written in a sad and gloomy 
hour. Mrs. Johnson had been given over by the physi- 
cians. Three days later she died. She left her husband 
almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised 15 
to see a man of his genius and learning stooping to every 
drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for 
the purpose of supplying a silly affected old woman with 
superfluities, which she accepted with but little gratitude. 
But all his affection had been concentrated on her. He 20 
had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. 
To him she was beautiful as the Gunnings, and witty as 
Lady Mary. Her opinion of his writings was more im- 
portant to him than the voice of the pit of Drury Lane 
Theatre, or the judgment of the "Monthly Review." The 25 
chief support which had sustained him through the most 
arduous labor of his life was the hope that she would 
enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from 
his Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vast labyrinth 
of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human 30 
beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to 
set himself, as he expressed it, doggedly to work. After 
three more laborious years, the Dictionary was at length 
complete. 

It had been generally supposed that this great work 35 
would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished 
nobleman to whom the prospectus had been addressed. 
He well knew the value of such a compliment; and there- 



22 MACAULAY 

fore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted 
himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same 
time of delicate and judicious kindness, the pride which 
he had so cruelly wounded. Since the "Ramblers" had 

5 ceased to appear the town had been entertained by a 
journal called "The World," to which many men of 
high rank and fashion contributed. In two successive 
numbers of "The World," the Dictionary was, to use the 
modern phrase, puffed with wonderful skill. The writings 

10 of Johnson were warmly praised. It was proposed that 
he should be invested with the authority of a Dictator, 
nay, of a Pope, over our language, and that his decisions 
about the meaning and the spelling of words should 
be received as final. His two folios, it was said, would 

15 of course be bought by everybody who could afford to 
buy them. It was soon known that these papers were 
written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of John- 
son was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with 
singular energy and dignity of thought and language, he 

20 repelled the tardy advances of his patron. VThe Diction- 
ary came, forth without a dedication. In the preface the 
author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, 
and described the difficulties with which he had been left 
to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and 

25 most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Home 
Tooke, never could read that passage without tears. 

The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, 
and something more than justice. The best lexicographer 
may well be content if his productions are received by 

30 the world with cold esteem. But Johnson's Dictionary 
was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar work 
has ever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary which 
could be read with pleasure. The definitions show so 
much acuteness of thought and command of language, 

35 and the passages quoted from poets, divines, and philoso- 
phers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may 
always be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. 
The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 23 

part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched 
etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic 
language except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, 
was scarcely a Teutonic language; and thus he was abso- 
lutely at the mercy of Junius and Skinner. 5 

The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added 
nothing to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred 
guineas which the booksellers had agreed to pay him had 
been advanced and spent before the last sheets issued 
from the press. It is painful to relate that, twice in the 10 
course of the year which followed the publication of 
this great work, he was arrested and carried to spunging- 
houses, and that he was twice indebted for his liberty to 
his excellent friend Richardson. It was still necessary 
for the man who had been formally saluted by the high- 15 
est authority as Dictator of the English language to 
supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his 
Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an edition of 
Shakespeare by subscription; and many subscribers sent 
in their names and laid down their money; but he soon 20 
found the task so little to his taste that he turned to 
more attractive employments. He contributed many 
papers to a new monthly journal, which, was called the 
"Literary Magazine." Few of these papers have much 
interest; but among them was the very best thing that 25 
he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of 
satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyns's "Inquiry into 
the Nature and Origin of Evil." 

In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of 
a series of essays, entitled the "Idler." During two 30 
years these essays continued to appear weekly. They were 
eagerly read, widely circulated, and, indeed, impudently 
pirated, while they were still in the original form, and had 
a large sale when collected into volumes. The "Idler" may 
be described as a second part of the "Rambler," some- 35 
what livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part. 

• While Johnson was busy with his "Idlers," his mother, 
who had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lich- 



24 MACAULAY 

field. It was long since he had seen her; but he had not 
failed to contribute largely, out of his small means, to 
her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her 
funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he 
5 wrote a little book in a single week, and sent off the sheets 
to the press without reading them over. A hundred 
pounds were paid him for the copyright; and the pur- 
chasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain; 
for the book was "Rasselas." 

10 The success of "Rasselas" was great, though such ladies 
as Miss Lydia Languish must have been grievously dis- 
appointed when they found that the new volume from 
the circulating library was little more than a disserta- 
tion on the author's favorite theme, the Vanity of Human 

15 Wishes; that the Prince of Abyssinia was without a 
mistress, and the Princess without a lover; and that the 
story set the hero and the heroine down exactly where 
it had taken them up. The style was the subject of much 
eager controversy. The "Monthly Review" and the 

20 "Critical Review" took different sides. Many readers 
pronounced the writer a pompous pedant, who would 
never use a word of two syllables where it was possible 
to use a word of six, and who could not make a waiting- 
woman relate her adventures without balancing every 

25 noun with another noun, and every epithet with another 
epithet. Another party, not less zealous, cited with de- 
light numerous passages in which weighty meaning was 
expressed with accuracy and illustrated with splendor. 
And both the censure and the praise were merited. 

30 About the plan of "Rasselas" little was said by the 
critics; and yet the faults of the plan might seem to invite 
severe criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakes- 
peare for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, 
and for ascribing to one age or nation the manners and 

35 opinions of another. Yet Shakespeare has not sinned 
in this way more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and 
Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are evidently meant to be 
Abyssinians of the eighteenth century: for the Europe 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 25 

which Imlae describes is the Europe of the eighteenth 
century; and the inmates of the Happy Valley talk 
familiarly of that law of gravitation which Newton dis- 
covered, and which was not fully received even at 
Cambridge till the eighteenth century. What a real com- 5 
pany of Abyssinians would have been may be learned from 
Bruce's "Travels." But Johnson, not content with turning 
filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorged with 
raw steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as 
eloquent and enlightened as himself or his friend Burke, 10 
and into ladies as highly accomplished as Mrs. Lennox 
or Mrs. Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic system 
of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of 
polygamy, a land where women are married without ever 
being seen, he introduced the flirtations and jealousies of 15 
our ball-rooms. In a land where there is boundless 
liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as the indissoluble 
compact. "A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or 
brought together by artifice, exchange glances, recipro- 
cate civilities, go home, and dream of each other. Such," 20 
says Rasselas, "is the common process of marriage." 
Such it may have been, and may still be, in London, but 
assuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty of such 
improprieties had little right to blame the poet who made 
Hector quote Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano as 25 
flourishing in the days of the oracle of Delphi. 

By such exertions as have been described, Johnson 
supported himself till the year 1762. In that year a great 
change in his circumstances took place. He had from a 
child been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. His 30 
Jacobite prejudice* had been exhibited with little disguise 
both in his works and in his conversation. Even in his 
massy and elaborate Dictionary he had, with a strange 
want of taste and judgment, inserted bitter and con- 
tumelious reflections on the Whig party. The excise, 35 
which was a favorite resource of Whig financiers, he had 
designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the 
commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they 



26 MACAULAY 

had seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with 
difficulty been prevented from holding up the Lord Privy 
Seal by name as an example of the meaning of the word 
"renegade." A pension he had defined as pay given to 
5 a state hireling to betray his country; a pensioner as a 
slave of state hired by a stipend to obey a master. It 
seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would 
himself be pensioned. But that was a time of wonders. 
George the Third had ascended the throne; and had, in 

10 the course of a few months, disgusted many of the old 
friends and conciliated many of the old enemies of his 
house. The city was becoming mutinous. Oxford was 
becoming loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks were mur- 
muring. Somersets and Wyndhams were hastening to 

15 kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now Lord Bute, 
who was a Tory, and could have no objection to John- 
son's Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of 
men of letters; and Johnson was one of the most eminent 
and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. 

20 A pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, 
and with very little hesitation accepted. 

This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way 
of life. For the first time since his boyhood he no longer 
felt the daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He 

25 was at liberty, after thirty years of anxiety and drudgery, 
to indulge his constitutional indolence, to lie in bed till 
two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in 
the morning, without fearing either the printer's devil 
or the sheriff's officer. 

30 One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to 
perform. He had received large subscriptions for his 
promised edition of Shakespeare; he had lived on those 
subscriptions during some years; and he could not with- 
out disgrace omit to perform his part of the contract. 

35 His friends repeatedly exhorted him to make an effort; 
and he repeatedly resolved to do so. But, notwithstanding 
their exhortations and his resolutions, month followed 
month, year followed year, and nothing was done. He 

/ u 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 27 

prayed fervently against his idleness; he determined, as 
often as he received the sacrament, that he would no 
longer doze away and trifle away his time; but the spell 
under which he lay resisted prayer and sacrament. His 
private notes at this time are made up of self-reproaches. 5 
"My indolence," he wrote on Easter eve in 1764, "has sunk 
into grosser sluggishness. A kind of strange oblivion has 
overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the 
last year." Easter, 1765, came, and found him still in 
the same state. "My time," he wrote, "has been unprofit- 10 
ably spent, and seems as a dream that has left nothing 
behind. My memory grows confused, and I know not how 
the days pass over me." Happily for his honor, the 
charm which held him captive was at length broken by no 
gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough to 15 
pay serious attention to a story about a ghost which 
haunted a house in Cock Lane, and had actually gone 
himself, with some of his friends, at one in the morn- 
ing, to St. John's Church, Clerkenwell, in the hope of 
receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But 20 
the spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained 
obstinately silent; and it soon appeared that a naughty 
girl of eleven had been amusing herself by making fools 
of so many philosophers. Churchill, who, confident in his 
powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party 25 
spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and 
Tory politics to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane Ghost 
in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson Pomposo, asked 
where the book was which had been so long promised and 
so liberally paid for, and directly accused the great 30 
moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual; 
and in October, 1765, appeared, after a delay of nine 
years, the new edition of Shakespeare. 

This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, 
but added nothing to the fame of his abilities and learn- 35 
ing. The preface, though it contains some good passages, 
is not in his best manner. The most valuable notes are 
those in which he had an opportunity of showing how 



28 MACAULAY 

attentively he had during many years observed human life 
and human nature. The best specimen is the note on the 
character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to be found 
even in Wilhelm Meister's admirable examination of 
5 Hamlet. But here praise must end. It would be difficult 
to name a more slovenly, a more worthless, edition of 
any great classic. The reader may turn over play after 
play without finding one happy conjectural emendation, or 
one ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage 

10 which had baffled preceding commentators. Johnson had, 
in his Prospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly 
fitted for the task which he had undertaken, because he 
had, as a lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking 
a wider view of the English language than any of his 

15 predecessors. That his knowledge of our literature was 
extensive is indisputable. But, unfortunately, he had alto- 
gether neglected that very part of our literature with 
which it is especially desirable that an editor of Shakes- 
peare should be conversant. It is dangerous to assert a 

20 negative. Yet little will be risked by the assertion, that 
in the two folio volumes of the "English Dictionary" 
there is not a single passage quoted from any dramatist 
of the Elizabethan age, except Shakespeare and Ben. 
Even from Ben the quotations are few. Johnson might 

25 easily, in a few months, have made himself well ac- 
quainted with every old play that was extant. But it 
never seems to have occurred to him that this was a 
necessary preparation for the work which he had under- 
taken. He would doubtless have admitted that it would 

30 be the height of absurdity in a man who was not familiar 
with the works of x-Eschylus and Euripides to publish an 
edition of Sophocles. Yet he ventured to publish an 
edition of Shakespeare, without having ever in his life, 
as far as can be discovered, read a single scene of 

35 Massinger, Ford, Decker, Webster, Marlowe, Beaumont, 
or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and scurrilous. 
Those who most loved and honored him had little to 
say in praise of the manner in which he had discharged 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 29 

the duty of a commentator. He had, however, acquitted 
himself of a debt which had long lain heavy on his con- 
science, and he sank back into the repose from which 
the sting of satire had roused him. He long continued to 
live upon the fame which he had already won. He was 5 
honored by the University of Oxford with a Doctor's 
degree, by the Royal Academy with a professorship, and 
by the King with an interview, in which his Majesty most 
graciously expressed a hope that so excellent a writer 
would not cease to write. In the interval, however, be- 10 
tween 1765 and 1775, Johnson published only two or three 
political tracts, the longest of which he could have pro- 
duced in forty-eight hours, if he had worked as he worked 
on the "Life of Savage" and on "Rasselas." 

But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. 15 
The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon 
those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole 
literary world, was altogether without a parallel. His 
colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. He 
had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humor, immense 20 
knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store 
of curious anecdotes. As respected style, he spoke far 
better than he wrote. Every sentence which dropped from 
his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicely 
balanced period of the "Rambler." But in his talk there 25 
were no pompous triads, and little more than a fair pro- 
portion of words in -osity and -ation. All was simplicity, 
ease, and vigor. He uttered his short, weighty, and 
pointed sentences with a power of voice, and a justness 
and energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather 30 
increased than diminished by the rollings of his huge 
form, and by the asthmatic gaspings and puffings in 
which the peals of his eloquence generally ended. Nor 
did the laziness which made ] im unwilling to sit down to 
his desk prevent him from giving instruction or enter- 35 
tainment orally. To discuss questions of taste, of learn- 
ing, of casuistry, in language so exact and so forcible 
that it might have been printed without the alteration of 






30 MACAULAY 

a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, 
as he said, to fold his legs and have his talk out. He 
was ready to bestow the overflowings of his full mind 
on anybody who would start a subject, on a fellow- 

5 passenger in a stage-coach, or on the person who sate at 
the same table with him in an eating-house. But his 
conversation was nowhere so brilliant and striking as 
when he was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities 
and knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, to 

10 send him back every ball that he threw. Some of these, 
in 1764, formed themselves into a club, which gradually 
became a formidable power in the commonwealth of let- 
ters. The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new 
books were speedily known over all London, and were 

15 sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn 
the sheets to the service of the trunk-maker and the 
pastry-cook. Nor shall we think this strange when we 
consider what great and various talents and acquirements 
met in the little fraternity. Goldsmith was the repre- 

20 sentative of poetry and light literature, Reynolds of the 
arts, Burke of political eloquence and political philosophy. 
There, too, were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, 
the greatest linguist, of the age. Garrick brought to the 
meetings his inexhaustible pleasantry, his incomparable 

25 mimicry, and his consummate knowledge of stage effect. 
Among the most constant attendants were two high-born 
and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound together by 
friendship, but of widely different characters and habits; 
Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek 

30 literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the 
sanctity of his life ; and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for 
his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious 
taste, and his sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a 
society was not easy. Yet even over such a society John- 

35 son predominated. Burke might indeed have disputed the 
supremacy to which others were under the necessity of 
submitting. But Burke, though not generally a very 
patient listener, was content to take the second part when 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 31 

Johnson was present; and the club itself, consisting of 
so many eminent men, is to this day popularly designated 
as Johnson's Club. 

Among the members of this celebrated body was one 
to whom it has owed the greater part of its celebrity, 5 
yet who was regarded with little respect by his breth- 
ren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seat among 
them. This was James Boswell, a young Scotch lawyer, 
heir to an honorable name and a fair estate. That he was 
a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, 10 
garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with 
him. That he could not reason, that he had no wit, no 
humor, no eloquence, is apparent from his writings. And 
yet his writings are read beyond the Mississippi, and 
under the Southern Cross, and are likely to be read as 15 
long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead 
language. Nature had made him a slave and an idolater. 
His mind resembled those creepers which the botanists 
call parasites, and which can subsist only by clinging 
round the steins and imbibing the juices of stronger 20 
plants. He must have fastened himself on somebody. He 
might have fastened himself on Wilkes, and have become 
the fiercest patriot in the Bill of Rights Society. He 
might have fastened himself on Whitfield, and have be- 
come the loudest field preacher among the Calvinistic 25 
Methodists. In a happy hour he fastened himself on 
Johnson. The pair might seem ill matched. For Johnson 
had early been prejudiced against Boswell's country. 
To a man of Johnson's strong understanding and irritable 
temper, the silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must 30 
have been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. John- 
son hated to be questioned; and Boswell was eternally 
catechising him on all kinds of subjects, and sometimes 
propounded such questions as, "What would you do, sir, 
if you were locked up in a tower with a baby?" Johnson 35 
was a water-drinker and Boswell was a wine-bibber, and 
indeed little better than a habitual sot. It was impossible 
that there should be perfect harmony between two such 



32 MACAULAY 

companions. Indeed, the great man was sometimes pro- 
voked into fits of passion, in which he said things which 
the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. 
Every quarrel, however, was soon made up. During 

5 twenty years the disciple continued to worship the mas- 
ter : the master continued to scold the disciple, to sneer 
at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarily re- 
sided at a great distance from each other. Boswell 
practised in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, and 

10 could pay only occasional visits to London. During these 
visits his chief business was to watch Johnson, to discover 
all Johnson's habits, to turn the conversation to subjects 
about which Johnson was likely to say something re- 
markable, and to fill quarto note-books with minutes of 

15 what Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the 
materials out of which was afterwards constructed the 
most interesting biographical work in the world. 

Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a 
connection less important indeed to his fame, but much 

20 more important to his happiness, than his connection with 
Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers 
in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated under- 
standing, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married 
to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert, 

25 young women, who are perpetually doing or saying what 
is not exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are 
always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted 
with Johnson, and the acquaintance ripened fast into 
friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the 

30 brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by 
finding that a man so widely celebrated preferred their 
house to any other in London. Even the peculiarities 
which seemed to unfit him for civilized society, his gesticu- 
lations, his rollings, his puffings, his mutterings, the 

35 strange way in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous 
eagerness with which he devoured his dinner, his fits of 
melancholy, his fits of anger, his frequent rudeness, his 
occasional ferocity, increased the interest which his new 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 33 

associates took in him. For these things were the cruel 
marks left behind by a life which had been one long con- 
flict with disease and with adversity. In a vulgar hack 
writer such oddities would have excited only disgust. But 
in a man of genius, learning, and virtue, their effect was 5 
to add pity to admiration and esteem. Johnson soon had 
an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still 
more pleasant apartment at the villa of his friends on 
Streatham Common. A large part of every year he 
passed in those abodes, abodes which must have seemed 10 
magnificent and luxurious indeed, when compared with 
the dens in which he had generally been lodged. But his 
chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer 
of his Abyssinian tale called "the endearing elegance of 
female friendship." Mrs. Thrale rallied him, soothed him, 15 
coaxed him, and, if she sometimes provoked him by her 
flippancy, made ample amends by listening to his reproofs 
with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was dis- 
eased in body and mind, she was the most tender of nurses. 
No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance 20 
that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly com- 
passion, could devise was wanting to his sick-room. He 
requited her kindness by an affection pure as the affection 
of a father, yet delicately tinged with a gallantry, which, 
though awkward, must have been more flattering than 25 
the attentions of a crowd of the fools who gloried in the 
names, now obsolete, of Buck and Maccaroni. It should 
seem that a full half of Johnson's life, during about 
sixteen years, was passed under the roof of the Thrales. 
He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and some- 30 
times to Brighton, once to Wales, and once to Paris. But 
he had at the same time a house in one of the narrow and 
gloomy courts on the north of Fleet Street. In the garrets 
was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection of 
books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On a 35 
lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend 
with a plain dinner, a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and 
spinage, and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwelling unin- 



34 MACAULAY 

habited during his long absences. It was the home of the 
most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was 
brought together. At the head of the establishment John- 
son had placed an old lady named Williams, whose chief 
5 recommendations were her blindness and her poverty. 
But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave 
an asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, 
Mrs. Desmoulins, whose family he had known many years 
before in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daugh- 

10 ter of Mrs. Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, 
who was generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but 
whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack 
doctor named Levett, who bled and dosed coal-heavers and 
hackney coachmen, and received for fees crusts of bread, 

15 bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and sometimes a little 
copper, completed this strange menagerie. All . these 
poor creatures were at constant war with each other, and 
with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, 
they transferred their hostilities from the servant to the 

20 master, complained that a better table was not kept for 
them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was 
glad to make his escape to Streatham, or to the Mitre 
Tavern. And yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and 
most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to 

25 resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of 
a purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful 
patron, bore patiently from mendicants, who, but for his 
bounty, must have gone to the workhouse, insults more 
provoking than those for which he had knocked down 

30 Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after 
year Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins, Polly and 
Levett continued to torment him and to live upon him. 

The course of life which has been described was inter- 
rupted in Johnson's sixty-fourth year by an important 

35 event. He had early read an account of the Hebrides, 
and had been much interested by learning that there was 
so near him a land peopled by a race which was still as 
rude and simple as in the Middle Ages. A wish to be- 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 35 

come intimately acquainted with a state of society so 
utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequently crossed 
his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would 
have overcome his habitual sluggishness, and his love of 
the smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, had not 5 
Boswell importuned him to attempt the adventure, and 
offered to be his squire. At length, in August, 1773, John- 
son crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously 
into what was then considered, by most Englishmen, as 
a dreary and perilous wilderness. After wandering about 10 
two months through the Celtic region, sometimes in rude 
boats which did not protect him from the rain, and some- 
times on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his 
weight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full 
of new images and new theories. During the following 15 
year he employed himself in recording his adventures. 
About the beginning of 1775, his "Journey to the 
Hebrides" was published, and was, during some weeks, the 
chief subject of conversation in all circles in which any 
attention was paid to literature. The book is still read 20 
with pleasure. The narrative is entertaining; the specu- 
lations, whether sound or unsound, are always ingenious; 
and the style, though too stiff and pompous, is somewhat 
easier and more graceful than that of his early writings. 
His prejudice against the Scotch had at length become 25 
little more than matter of jest; and whatever remained 
of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the 
kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been 
received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, not 
to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the 30 
Presbyterian polity and ritual, or that an eye accustomed 
to the hedgerows and parks of England should not be 
struck by the bareness of Berwickshire and East Lothian. 
But even in censure Johnson's tone is not' unfriendly. The 
most enlightened Scotchmen, with Lord Mansfield at their 35 
head, were well pleased. But some foolish and ignorant 
Scotchmen were moved to anger by a little unpalatable 
truth which was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed 



36 MACAULAY 

him whom they chose to consider as the enemy of their 
country with libels much more dishonorable to their coun- 
try than anything that he had ever said or written. They 
published paragraphs in the newspapers, articles in the 
5 magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling books. One 
scribbler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed ; another for 
being a pensioner; a third informed the world that one 
of the Doctor's uncles had been convicted of felony in 
Scotland, and had found that there was in that country 

10 one tree capable of supporting the weight of an Eng- 
lishman. Macpherson, whose "Fingal" had been proved 
in the "Journey" to be an impudent forgery, threatened 
to take vengeance with a cane. The only effect of this 
threat was that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery 

15 in the most contemptuous terms, and walked about, during 
some time, with a cudgel, which, if the impostor had not 
been too wise to encounter it, would assuredly have de- 
scended upon him, to borrow the sublime language of his 
own epic poem, "like a hammer on the red son of the 

20 furnace." 

Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. 
He had early resolved never to be drawn into controversy ; 
and he adhered to his resolution with a steadfastness which 
is the more extraordinary, because he was, both intel- 

25 lectually and morally, of the stuff of which controversial- 
ists are made. In conversation, he was a singularly 
eager, acute, and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss 
for good reasons he had recourse to sophistry; and, when 
heated by altercation, he made unsparing use of sarcasm 

30 and invective. But, when he took his pen in his hand, his 
whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad 
writers misrepresented him and reviled him; but not one 
of the hundred could boast of having been thought by 
him worthy of a refutation, or even of a retort. The 

35 Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons did their 
best to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them 
importance by answering them. But the reader will in 
vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick or 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 37 

Campbell, to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotchman, 
bent on vindicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied 
him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter. 

"Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum." 

But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had 5 
learned, both from his own observation and from literary 
history, in which he was deeply read, that the place of 
books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is 
written about them, but by what is written in them; and 
that an author whose works are likely to live is very un- 10 
wise if he stoops to wrangle with detractors whose works 
are certain to die. He always maintained that fame was 
a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten 
back, as well as beaten forward, and which would soon 
fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was is 
oftener in his mouth than that fine apophthegm of Bent- 
ley, that no man was ever written down but by himself. 

Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the 
"Journey to the Hebrides," Johnson did what none of his 
envious assailants could have done, and to a certain extent 20 
succeeded in writing himself down. The disputes between 
England and her American Colonies had reached a point 
at which no amicable adjustment was possible. Civil 
war was evidently impending; and the ministers seem to 
have thought that the eloquence of Johnson might with 25 
advantage be employed to inflame the nation against the 
opposition here, and against the rebels beyond the Atlan- 
tic. He had already written two or three tracts in defence 
of the foreign and domestic policy of the Government; 
and those tracts, though hardly worthy of him, were much 30 
superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay on the coun- 
ters of Almon and Stockdale. But his "Taxation no 
Tyranny" was a pitiable failure. The very title was a silly 
phrase, which can have been recommended to his choice 
by nothing but a jingling alliteration which he ought to 35 
have despised. The arguments were such as boys use in 



38 MACAULAY 

debating societies. The pleasantry was as awkward as 
the gambols of a hippopotamus. Even Boswell was 
forced to own that, in this unfortunate piece, he could 
detect no trace of his master's powers. The general opin- 

5 ion was that the strong faculties which had produced 
the Dictionary and the "Rambler" were beginning to 
feel the effect of time and of disease, and that the old man 
would best consult his credit by writing no more. 

But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, 

10 not because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote 
"Rasselas" in the evenings of a week, but because he 
had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose for 
him, a subject such as he would at no time have been 
competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. 

15 He never willingly read or thought or talked about affairs 
of state. He loved biography, literary history, the history 
of manners; but political history was positively dis- 
tasteful to him. The question at issue between the 
Colonies and the mother country was a question about 

20 which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, 
as the greatest men must fail when they attempt to do 
that for which they are unfit; as Burke would have 
failed if Burke had tried to write comedies like those of 
Sheridan; as Reynolds would have failed if Reynolds had 

25 tried to paint landscapes like those of Wilson. Happily, 
Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most sig- 
nally that his failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual 
decay. 

On Easter eve, 1777, some persons, deputed by a meet- 

30 ing which consisted of forty of the first booksellers in 
London, called upon him. Though he had some scruples 
about doing business at that season, he received his 
visitors with much civility. They came to inform him 
that a new edition of the English poets, from Cowley 

35 downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask him to fur- 
nish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook 
the task, a task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. 
His knowledge of the literary history of England since 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 39 

the Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had 
derived partly from books, and partly from sources which 
had long been closed; from old Grub Street traditions; 
from the talk of forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers 
who had long been lying in parish vaults; from the recol- 
lections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who had 
conversed with the wits of Button; Cibber, who had 
mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists; 
Orrery, who had been admitted to the society of Swift; 
and Savage, who had rendered services of no very hon- 
orable kind to Pope. The biographer therefore sate 
down to his task with a mind full of matter. He had at 
first intended to give only a paragraph to every minor 
poet, and only four or five pages to the greatest name. 
But the flood of anecdote and criticism overflowed the 
narrow channel. The work, which was originally meant to 
consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes, 
;small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed. The 
first four appeared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781. 

The "Lives of the Poets" are, on the whole, the best of 
Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as 
any novel. The remarks on life and on human nature 
are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms are 
often excellent, and, even when grossly and provokingly 
unjust, well deserve to be studied. For, however erroneous 
they ma3 r be, they are never silly. They are the judg- 
ments of a mind trammelled by prejudice and deficient 
in sensibility, but vigorous and acute. They therefore 
generally contain a portion of valuable truth which de- 
serves to be separated from the alloy; and, at the very 
worst, they mean something, a praise to which much of 
what is called criticism in our times has no pretensions. 

Savage's "Life" Johnson reprinted nearly as it had 
appeared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will 
turn to the other lives will be struck by the difference 
of style. Since Johnson had been at ease in his circum- 
stances he had written little and had talked much. When, 
therefore, he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, 



40 MACAULAY 

the mannerism which he had contracted while he was in 
the constant habit of elaborate composition was less per- 
ceptible than formerly; and his diction frequently had 
a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted. The im- 
5 provement may be discerned by a skilful critic in the 
"Journey to the Hebrides," and in the "Lives of the 
Poets" is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of 
the most careless reader. 

Among the "Lives" the best are perhaps those of Cow- 

10 ley, Dryden, and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all 
doubt, that of Gray. 

This great work at once became popular. There was, 
indeed, much just and much unjust censure: but even 
those who were loudest in blame were attracted by the 

15 book in spite of themselves. Malone computed the gains 
of the publishers at five or six thousand pounds. But 
the writer was very poorly remunerated. Intending at 
first to write very short prefaces, he had stipulated for 
only two hundred guineas. The booksellers, when they 

20 saw how far his performance had surpassed his promise, 
added only another hundred. Indeed, Johnson, though 
he did not despise, or affect to despise money, and though 
his strong sense and long experience ought to have quali- 
fied him to protect his own interests, seems to have been 

25 singularly unskilful and unlucky in his literary bargains. 
He was generally reputed the first English writer of his 
time. Yet several writers of his time sold their copy- 
rights for sums such as he never ventured to ask. To 
give a single instance, Robertson received four thousand 

30 five hundred pounds for the "History of Charles V"; and 

it is no disrespect to the memory of Robertson to say 

that the "History of Charles V" is both a less valuable 

and a less amusing book than the "Lives of the Poets." 

Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The 

35 infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That in- 
evitable event of which he never thought without horror 
was brought near to him ; and his whole life was darkened 
by the shadow of death. He had often to pay the cruel 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 41 

price of longevity. Every year he lost what could never 
be replaced. The strange dependents to whom he had 
given shelter, and to whom, in spite of their faults, he 
was strongly attached by habit, dropped off one by one; 
and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the 5 
noise of their scolding matches. The kind and generous 
Thrale was no more; and it would have been well if 
his wife had been laid beside him. But she survived to be 
the laughing-stock of those who had envied her, and to 
draw from the eyes of the old man who had loved her 10 
beyond anything in the world, tears far more bitter than 
he would have shed over her grave. With some estimable, 
and many agreeable qualities, she was not made to be 
independent. The control of a mind more steadfast than 
her own was necessary to her respectability. While she 15 
was restrained by her husband, a man of sense and firm- 
ness, indulgent to her taste in trifles, but always the undis- 
puted master of his house, her worst offences had been 
impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pettishness 
ending in sunny good humor. But he was gone; and she 20 
was left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensi- 
bility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. She "soon fell 
in love with a music-master from Brescia, in whom nobody 
but herself could discover anything to admire. Her pride, 
and perhaps some better feelings, struggled hard against 25 
this degrading passion. But the struggle irritated her 
nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her 
health. Conscious that her choice was one which John- 
son could not approve, she became desirous to escape from 
his inspection. Her manner towards him changed. She 30 
was sometimes cold and sometimes petulant. She did 
not conceal her joy when he left Streatham; she never 
pressed him to return; and, if he came unbidden, she re- 
ceived him in a manner which convinced him that he was 
no longer a welcome guest. He took the very intelligible 35 
hints which she gave. He read, for the last time, a chapter 
of the Greek Testament in the library which had been 
formed by himself. In a solemn and tender prayer he 



42 MACAULAY 

commended the house and its inmates to the Divine pro- 
tection, and, with emotions which choked his voice and 
"convulsed his powerful frame, left for ever that beloved 
home for the gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet 

5 Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to> 
him were to run out. Here, in June, 1783, he had a 
paralytic stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and 
which does not appear to have at all impaired his 
intellectual faculties. But other maladies came thick upon 

io him. His asthma tormented him day and night. Drop- 
sical sjmaptoms made their appearance. While sinking 
under a complication of diseases, he heard that the woman, 
whose friendship had been the chief happiness of sixteen 
years of his life, had married an Italian fiddler; that all 

15 London was crying shame upon her; and that the news- 
papers and magazines were filled with allusions to the 
Ephesian matron, and the two pictures in "Hamlet." He 
vehemently said that he would try to forget her existence. 
He never uttered her name. Every memorial of her which 

20 met his eye he flung into the fire. She meanwhile fled 
from the laughter and the hisses of her countrymen and 
countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastened 
across Mont Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry 
Christmas of concerts and lemonade parties at Milan, that 

25 the great man with whose name hers is inseparably asso- 
ciated had ceased to exist. 

He had, in spite of much mental and much bodily 
affliction, clung vehemently to life. The feeling de- 
scribed in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the 

30 series of his "Idlers" seemed to grow stronger in him as 
his last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be 
able to draw his breath more easily in a southern climate, 
and would probably have set out for Rome and Naples, 
but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That 

35 expense, indeed, he had the means of defraying; for 
he had laid up about two thousand pounds, the fruit of 
labors which had made the fortune of several publishers. 
But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard, and 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 43 

he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a 
secret. Some of his friends hoped that the government 
might be induced to increase his pension to six hundred 
pounds a year; but this hope was disappointed, and he 
resolved to stand one English winter more. That winter 5 
was his last. His legs grew weaker; his breath grew 
shorter ; the fatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions 
which he, courageous against pain, but timid against 
death, urged his surgeons to make deeper and deeper. 
Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferings 10 
during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, 
he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians and 
surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from 
him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Wind- 
ham sate much in the sick-room, arranged the pillows, and 15 
sent his own servant to watch at night by the bed. Frances 
Burney, whom the old man had cherished with fatherly 
kindness, stood weeping at the door; while Langton, whose 
piety eminently qualified him to be an adviser and com- 
forter at such a time, received the last pressure of his 20 
friend's hand within. When at length the moment, 
dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark 
cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His temper be- 
came unusually patient and gentle ; he ceased to think with 
terror of death, and of that which lies beyond death; and 25 
he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the propitia- 
tion of Christ. In this serene frame of mind he died on 
the 13th of December, 1784. He was laid, a week later, in 
Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom 
he had been the historian,— Cowley and Denham, Dry den 30 
and Congreve, Gay, Prior, and Addison. 

Since his death the popularity of his works— the "Lives 
of the Poets," and, perhaps, the "Vanity of Human 
Wishes," excepted— has greatly diminished. His Diction- 
ary has been altered by editors till it can scarcely be 35 
called his. An allusion to his "Rambler" or his "Idler" is 
not readily apprehended in literary circles. The fame 
even of "Rasselas" has grown somewhat dim. But, though 



44 MACAULAY 

the celebrity of the writings may have declined, the 
celebrity of the writer, strange to say, is as great as ever. 
Boswell's book has done for him more than the best of 
his own books could do. The memory of other authors is 

5 kept alive by their works. But the memory of Johnson 
keeps many of his works alive. The old philosopher is 
still among us in the brown coat with the metal buttons 
and the shirt which ought to be at wash, blinking, puffing, 
rolling his head, drumming with his fingers, tearing his 

10 meat like a tiger, and swallowing his tea in oceans. No 
human being who has been more than seventy years in 
the grave is so well known to us. And it is but just to 
say that our intimate acquaintance with what he would 
himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and 

15 of his temper, serves only to strengthen our conviction 
that he was both a great and a good man. 



NOTES 



Text.— Macaulay wrote two essays on Samuel Johnson, and 
the views expressed in them should be carefully compared. 
One was written in 1831 for the "Edinburgh Review" 
as a review of Croker's edition of Boswell's "Life of 
Samuel Johnson. ' ' The other was written in 1856 as a bio- 
graphical article for the eighth edition of the "Encyclopaedia 
Britanniea. ' ' The earlier essay is an example of Macaulay 's 
harshest style of criticism, permeated throughout by his ex- 
treme personal dislike of Croker, but the passage of twenty- 
five years brought a milder spirit, more mature and more 
broadly tolerant. The later piece of work is by far the finer. 
It is a work, says Matthew Arnold, "which shows Macaulay 
at his very best; a work written when his style was matured, 
and when his resources were in all their fullness. The sub- 
ject, too, was one which he knew thoroughly, and for which 
he felt cordial sympathy; indeed by his mental habit Macau- 
lay himself belonged, in many respects, to the eighteenth 
century rather than to our own. " It is this ' ' Life ' ' that is 
here reprinted. The text is taken from the collected works 
of Macaulay edited by Lady Trevelyan— Vol. vn (Longmans, 
Green, and Co., 1879). 

Page 3, Line 14— sovereigns in possession. Those who 
had been placed on the throne of England after the deposi- 
tion and exile of King James II in 1688, viz., William and 
Mary (1688-1702) and Anne (1702-1714). 

3, 15— Jacobite. An adherent of James II of England 
after his abdication, or of his son, the Pretender; a partisan 
or supporter of the Stuarts after the Revolution of 1688. 

3, 16— Lichfield. A city of Staffordshire. It has a fine 
cathedral with three spires, and in the marketplace a statue 
of Dr. Johnson faces the house in which he was born. 

3, 27— The royal touch. An almost universal belief, which 

45 



46 NOTES 

made the name " king's evil" a popular synonym for scrof- 
ula. Charles II touched some 100,000 persons for the disease. 
William III on the other hand would have nothing to do with 
it. "God give you better health and more sense," he said 
to one patient whom he was induced to touch. Macaulay de- 
votes two or three interesting pages to this subject in his 
' ' History of England, ' ' chapter xiv. 

4, 23— Attic poetry. I.e., Athenian. Athens dominated 
the district of Attica in ancient Greece as Sparta did Laconia. 

4, 27— Augustan delicacy of taste. The age of Augustus 
(31 b.c-14 a.d.) was the age of Virgil and Horace, when 
Koman literature reached its height of artistic perfection. 

4, 28— public schools. The English public schools, such 
as Eton, Rugby, and Harrow, are not public schools in the 
American sense. They are more like wealthy, exclusive col- 
leges for secondary education, supported by heavy endow- 
ments and large tuition fees. 

4, 33— great restorers of learning. Those who revived 
the study of the Greek and Latin classics in the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries. Of these Petrarch (1304-1374) was 
by far the greatest. Petrarch is best known now as the 
writer of exquisite lyrics and the father of the sonnet, but he 
himself prized far more his Latin works — now scarcely read 
even by scholars— and his services to learning. 

5, 1— modern copies from the antique. This is scarcely 
a compliment. See the Essay on Addison, pages 20-21. 

5, 10— either University. Oxford and Cambridge are the 
two implied. 

5, 13— Pembroke College. Founded in 1624, and named 
after the then Chancellor of the University, the Earl of Pem- 
broke. The college still possesses Johnson's tea-pot and the 
desk on which he wrote his dictionary, and his portrait by 
Eeynolds hangs in the common room. 

5, 20 — Macrobius. A Roman grammarian of the fifth cen- 
tury. 

5, 27— Christ Church. One of the finest and wealthiest of 
the Oxford colleges,— founded by Cardinal Wolsey, 1524. 
King Edward VII is a graduate of Christ Church, as were 
also the Duke of Wellington, John Ruskin, and Gladstone. 

5, 33— gentleman commoner. One who was not dependent 



NOTES 47 

on any scholarship or charitable foundation, but paid for his 
' ' commons ' ' and had college privileges. The word ' ' commons ' ' 
is familiar in many American colleges as applied to the col- 
lege dining-room. 

6, 6— Pope's Messiah. A sacred eclogue in imitation of 
Virgil's "Pollio" (Eclogue iv). It was published in the 
1 ' Spectator ' ' of May 12, 1712. 

8, 10— usher of a grammar school. Assistant in a school 
in which Latin and Greek are taught. 

8, 19— Politian. Angelq Poliziano (1454-1494), the most 
intimate friend of the great Florentine, Lorenzo the Mag- 
nificent. He had the double distinction of being the greatest 
Italian lyric poet of the fifteenth century, and the first 
scholar of his age. 

8, 29— Queensberrys and Lepels. Two families of rank 
and fashion, known less to the historian than to readers of 
the letters and gossip of Swift and Pope. 

8, 31— ceruse. Derivation unknown, possibly connected 
with the Gr. Kepog, wax. A name for white lead, formerly 
used in the making of ointments; hence used vaguely for pain 
or cosmetic for the skin. 

9, 21— Garrick. David Garrick (1717-1779), one of the 
most famous of English actors. He and his brother were 
Johnson's first pupils, and rode up with him to London. He 
was a bright and vivacious talker. Many stories of his dimin- 
utive stature and of his avarice were circulated, for the most 
part by rival actors. He had no enduring hostility, and was 
devoid of lasting bitterness. See the "Dictionary of Na- 
tional Biography. ' ' 

9, 28— tragedy of "Irene." Johnson's only dramatic 
poem, brought out later by Garrick. See "Addison," 5, 7. 
The plot is based on the love of Mohammed II, the Turkish 
conqueror of Constantinople, for the Greek princess Irene. 
Some will be reminded of the same episode in Lew Wallace's 
' ' Prince of India. ' ' 

10, 16— Thomson. James Thomson (1700-1748). A 
Scotch poet, author of ' ' The Seasons. ' ' 

10, 18— Fielding. Henry Fielding (1707-1754), better 
known as the greatest English novelist of the eighteenth 
century than as a dramatist. His most famous novel is 



48 NOTES 

"Tom Jones. " "Pasquin," a dramatic satire, was pub- 
lished 1736. 

10, 19— Beggar's Opera. A famous play by John Gay 
(1685-1732), produced 1728. It took the town by storm, 
but excited great hostility on the part of the forces of law 
and order, and sermons were preached against its demoraliz- 
ing influence. It won for its author the title of the ' ' Orpheus 
of Highwaymen. ' ' 

10, 29— a porter's knot. A pad and rope for carrying 
burdens. 

11, 8— Drury Lane. A famous street in London near the 
Strand about midway between Charing Cross and St. Paul's. 

11, 21— alamode. Usually now written a la mode. "Beef 
larded and stewed or braised with spices, vegetables, etc." 
("Century Dictionary"). 

12, 1— Harleian Library. The great library collected by 
Eobert Harley, Earl of Oxford, the famous Tory minister of 
Queen Anne. Osborne purchased it and hired Johnson to 
write an account of it, which was afterwards prefixed to the 
first volume of the catalogue. A selection of the pamphlets 
from the library, published in 1744-6 under the title of the 
"Harleian Miscellany," is to be found in many American 
libraries. 

12, 11— parliamentary intelligence. In 1641 the Long 
Parliament for the first time prohibited the printing of 
speeches without leave of the House. This prohibition was 
frequently renewed, and Parliament both before and after 
the Eevolution of 1688 looked with severe disfavor on any at- 
tempt to report debates. Towards the middle of the eighteenth 
century the House of Commons became more stringent than 
ever, and it was to evade these restrictions on publicity that 
the "Gentleman's Magazine" resorted to the device men- 
tioned. Similarly the "London Magazine" reported the 
proceedings of a fictitious Political Club, in which speeches 
.were made by Mark Antony, Brutus, and other orators of 
ancient Eome, each name having a perfectly wei understood 
reference to some member of Parliament. In 1771 the battle 
between the printers and Parliament came to a head, and the 
printers, backed by the best men in both Houses and the 
overwhelming force of public opinion, carried the day. There- 
after the system of reporting and printing the debates and 



NOTES 49 

proceedings of Parliament gradually attained its present won- 
derful rapidity and completeness. 

12, 15— Senate of Lilliput. The name of Lilliput and the 
strange names that follow are borrowed from "Gulliver's 
Travels. ' > 

12, 28— Capulets and Montagues. The famous rival fami- 
lies of Verona. See ' ' Eomeo and Juliet. ' ' 

12, 29— Blues of the Roman circus. The chariot race at 
Rome was at first a simple contest of two chariots whose 
drivers were distinguished by white and red liveries. Two 
additional colors, green and blue, were afterwards added; the 
four factions became clearly marked; and fierce street fights 
were common, especially between the Blues and Greens. The 
war of the colors was even worse in Constantinople and the 
East. 

12, 34— Sacheverell. Henry Sacheverell (1672-1724), 
clergyman and Tory politician. Suspended from his ministry 
for criticising the Whig government, and reinstated on the 
return of the Tories to power. 

13, 1— Oxford. During the Civil War Oxford became sud- 
denly prominent as the headquarters of the Royalist party: 
the king fell back on Oxford after Edgehill, Newbury, and 
Naseby. The final investment of the city, when the king had 
lost every other stronghold and had himself escaped in dis- 
guise, was in May, 1646, and it surrendered to Fairfax the 
next month. The sympathies of the townsfolk inclined to the 
Parliament, but the colleges were intensely loyal to the king. 
Only fifty students a year were graduated during the war, and 
most of the colleges sacrificed their plate to the needs of the 
royal treasury in 1643. 

13, 5— Tom Tempest. An absurdly extreme Jacobite in 
the "Idler," No. 10. "Tom Tempest is a steady friend to 
the house of Stuart. He can recount the prodigies that have 
appeared in the sky, and the calamities that have afflicted the 
nation every year from the Revolution ; and is of opinion that 
if the exiled family had continued to reign, there would have 
neither been worms in our ships, nor caterpillars in our 
trees. ' ' 

13, 7— Laud. Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford 
were the two ablest and most unscrupulous advisers of King 
Charles I during his period of personal government, 1629- 



50 NOTES 

1640, when he endeavored to rule without Parliament. Mac- 
aulay's contemptuous comment is scarcely more just than 
Johnson's. Laud was an enemy to English liberty, but he 
was far from being the poor creature that Macaulay describes. 

13, 11— Hampden. Charles I, seeking almost desperately 
for some device that would give him money without a meet- 
ing of Parliament during the period referred to in the pre- 
ceding note, found an ancient tax, ' ' ship-money, ' ' which an 
obsolete law empowered the king to levy at his own discretion 
for the defense of the realm. This he proceeded to do. In 
1636 John Hampden, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, re- 
fused to pay the tax, and his refusal began the national re- 
sistance to the king which culminated in the great Civil War 
(1642-1648). 

13, 13, 14— Falkland and Clarendon. Lucius Cary, Vis- 
count Falkland (1610? -1643) and Edward Hyde, Earl of 
Clarendon (1608-1674). Two moderate and noble-minded 
members of the Long Parliament who were opposed to the 
arbitrary designs of Charles, but who refused to go as far as 
the extreme Puritans, and fought on the king's side in the 
Civil War. Falkland was killed in the battle of Newbury. 
Clarendon lived to be for seven years Prime Minister of 
Charles II after the Kestoration (1660-1667).— Roundheads. 
The term applied in contempt by the Royalists to the Puritans 
because of their short hair. The more worldly Cavaliers wore 
wigs or long natural ringlets. 

13, 25— stock-jobbers. The Bank of England was estab- 
lished in 1694 in the face of much opposition, especially in 
the House of Lords. The stock was subscribed for in eleven 
days, largely by members of the House of Commons, and the 
commercial classes were thereby bound over to the new dy- 
nasty. The real objections to the scheme were that the 
directors were all Whigs, Nonconformists, and city men. The 
shares rose quickly to a premium, but were subject to fluctua- 
tions. 

13, 26— Septennial Parliaments. The duration of a Par- 
liament was extended from three \ears to seven by the Sep- 
tennial Bill (1716). It was a Whig measure, increasing the 
stability and power of Parliament, and was accordingly hated 
by the Tories. 



NOTES 51 

13, 27— continental connections. The kings who suc- 
ceeded Queen Anne were Electors of Hanover, and of course 
retained this "continental connection" after they became 
kings of England. The Jacobites, regarding George I and 
George II as usurpers, hated this German connection (broken 
in 1837 at the accession of Victoria) as they did everything 
else about the House of Hanover. 

13, 31— Great Rebellion. This is, of course, the Jacobite 
term for the Puritan Eevolution. 

13, 37— Whig. After the Restoration of the Stuarts there 
was a country party and a court party in Parliament, and to 
these the names of Whig and Tory were applied in 1679. 
They were nicknames given by the opponents of each party. 
The persistency of the names of the old parties was in large 
part due to their lack of meaning, for as new questions arose 
the names of the parties did not need to be altered though the 
objects of contention had changed. After 1830 the name of 
Whig gave place to that of Liberal, and that of Tory to Con- 
servative. 

14, 9— Juvenal. A great Roman satirist of the first and 
second centuries of our era. Dryden translated five of his 
extant satires. 

15, 5— Boyse. Samuel Boyse (1708-1749), an Irishman 
and a poet, chronically impecunious and a great trial to the 
patience of his patrons. 

15, 10— Hoole. John Hoole (1727-1803), not Johnson's 
later friend, the translator of Tasso. "Mr. Hoole told him 
he had received part of his education in Grub-street. . . . 
Having asked who was his instructor, and Mr. Hoole having 
answered, 'My uncle, Sir, who was a tailor'; Johnson, 
recollecting himself, said, 'Sir, I knew him; we called him 
the metaphysical tailor. He was of a club in Old Street, with 
me and George Psalmanazar and some others; but pray, .Sir, 
was he a good tailor?' Mr. Hoole having answered that he 
believed he was too mathematical, and used to draw squares 
and triangles on his shop-board, so that he did not excel in 
the cut of a coat; — 'I am sorry for it,' said Johnson; 'for I 
would have every man to be master of his own business. ' ' ' 
— Boswell, under 1783. 

15, 14— Psalmanazar. George Psalmanazar, a remarkable 



52 NOTES 

impostor (born about 1680 in Switzerland or southern France) 
who after an adventurous career in all parts of the world im- 
posed himself on Europe and England as a noble Japanese 
convert, a native of Formosa. For a time he was the lion of 
society, honored by the noble and the learned, and he was 
only deposed from his popularity by his own repentance and 
retirement. 

15, 21, 22— blue ribands in St. James's Square. The 
blue ribbon is worn by members of the Order of the Garter. 
St. James's Square was then and is still the very heart of 
aristocratic London. 

15, 24— Newgate. London's most famous prison, at the 
corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey. The building in 
which Savage was confined was no longer standing when 
Macaulay wrote. The Newgate that he knew was begun in 
1770 and it is now being replaced by still another. 

15, 34— Piazza of Covent Garden. An open arcade or 
covered walk, of a kind familiar enough in Italy, but quite 
unique in London. It was planned by Inigo Jones, and it was 
intended that it should run completely around the square of 
Covent Garden. But part of it was burned down, and it re- 
mains only on the north and east sides> 

16, 4— the Prime Minister. Sir Robert Walpole (1676- 
1745), Prime Minister of England, 1721-1742. 

16, 17— Grub Street. Now Milton Street. Johnson thus 
characterized it: "Grub Street, the name of a street in Lon- 
don, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, 
and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called 
Grub-street. ' ' 

17, 30— the tenth satire of Juvenal. In this satire Juve- 
nal, passing in review the illustrious of all ages, shows how 
vain are the ordinary objects of human desire. Hence it is 
wise to accept cheerfully the dispensations of Heaven, and 
simply entreat the gods for a sound mind in a sound body, 
for strength of soul— shrinking from neither toil nor death— 
and for a contented heart. 

17, 33— Wolsey. Thomas Wolsey (1471-1530), Cardinal 
and chief minister of Henry VIII; arrested for high treason, 
1530. 

17, 36— Sejanus. Minister, and favorite of the Emperor 



NOTES 53 

Tiberius. He plotted with Livia, the wife of Tiberius, and 
was suspected by his master, disgraced, and killed, a.d. 31. 
Ben Jonson wrote a tragedy on the subject. 

19, 13— blank verse. What should be the characteristics 
of blank verse? See Gummere's " Handbook" or Lanier's 
' ' Science of English Verse. ' ' 

19, 23, 24— Tatler . . . Spectator. See the Essay on Ad- 
dison, pp. 47, 48, and 57 ff. 

19, 38— Richardson. Samuel Eichardson (1689-1761), one 
of the great eighteenth century novelists. The best known of 
his works are ' ' Clarissa Harlowe, ' ' " Pamela, ' ' and * ' Sir 
Charles Grandison. " 

20, 2— Young. Edward Young (1681-1765), a writer of 
some eminence in his day, but now only remembered as the 
author of "Night Thoughts. ' '—Hartley. David Hartley, 
M.D. (1705-1757), author of "Observations on Man." 

20, 7— Bubb Dodington. George Bubb Dodington (1691- 
1762), a politician more eminent for skill in the baser arts 
of political life than for statesmanship, but worthy of re- 
membrance nevertheless as a patron of literature. He was 
later made Baron Melcombe, and left a diary (published in 
1784) covering the period from 1749 to 1761. 

20, 8— Prince Frederick. Frederick Louis, Prince of 
Wales (1707-1751), eldest son of George II. He courted 
popularity in opposition to his father, by whom he was sup- 
posed to be ill-used. He posed as a patron of the arts and 
literature. "His best quality was generosity, his worst in- 
sincerity and indifference to truth" (Horace Walpole). 

21, 1— Sir Roger, etc. Famous characters and episodes of 
the "Spectator." 

21, 8— Squire Bluster, etc. Characters and episodes in the 
' ' Rambler. ' f The most interesting, perhaps, is the last 
one named, a delightful tale which the curious may find in 
Nos. 186-7 of the "Eambler." 

21, 22— Gunnings. Maria and Elizabeth Gunning, after- 
wards Countess of Coventry and Duchess of Hamilton, re- 
spectively, were two daughters of an Irish gentleman (born 
1733-4), who became, when they went to London in 1751, 
perhaps the most famous beauties of their time in Europe. 

21, 23— Lady Mary. Lady Mary Wortley Montague 



54 NOTES 

(1689-1762), chiefly famous now for her literary friendships 
and for what is said of her brilliant and witty personality. 
Her admirable "Letters" were written from Constantinople 
when her husband was British Ambassador there (1716). 

21, 24— pit. That part of the auditorium of a theatre 
which is on the floor of the house, now usually restricted to 
the part of this behind the stalls. Also transferred to the 
people occupying this ("Oxford English Dictionary"). 
The seats in the pit are cheap and the judgment thence 
emanating is the vox populi of the drama. 

21, 25— Monthly Review. A Whig and non-conformist 
journal of which Johnson entirely disapproved. Its rival 
was the orthodox and Tory ' ' Critical Eeview. ' ' Johnson 
thus estimated the merits of the two papers in a conversa- 
tion with the king: — "The King then asked him if there 
were any other literary journals published in this kingdom, 
except the ' Monthly' and' 'Critical' RevieAvs, and on being 
answered that there was no other, his Majesty asked which 
of them was the best; Johnson answered that the 'Monthly 
Review' was done with most care, the 'Critical' upon the 
best principles; adding, that the authors of the 'Monthly 
Eeview' were enemies of the Church" (Boswell, under 1767). 

22, 18— a letter written with, etc. Boswell gives us a 
■copy of this letter, which runs as follows: 



To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield. 

February 7, 1755. 
My Lord, 

I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the 
'World," that two papers in which my dictionary is recom- 
mended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be 
so distinguished, is an honor, which, being very little accus- 
tomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to re- 
ceive, or in what terms to acknowledge. 

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your 
lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the 
enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish 
that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la 
terre;— that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the 
world contending; but I found my attendance so little en- 



NOTES 55 

couraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to 
continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in 
public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired 
and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I 
could; and no man is well-pleased to have his all neglected, 
be it never so little. 

Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in 
your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; dur- 
ing which time I have been pushing on my work through diffi- 
culties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought 
it at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of 
assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. 
Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron 
before. 

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, 
and found him a native of the rocks. 

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on 
a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has 
reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which 
you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been 
early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indif- 
ferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot 
impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it 
is no very cynical asperity, not to confess obligations where 
no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the 
public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which 
Providence has enabled me to do for myself. 

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obliga- 
tion to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed 
though I shall conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for 
I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which 
I once boasted myself with so much exultation, 

My Lord, 

Your lordship *s most humble, 

Most obedient servant, 

Sam. Johnson. 



,22, 21— In the preface, etc. The passage referred to is so 
admirable an example, of Johnson ? s style at its best that it is 
worth quoting at length, even apart from its value in illus- 



56 NOTES 

trating the lines in the text. It lies in the two last para- 
graphs of the preface to the dictionary. 

"There never can be wanting some . . . who will consider 
that no dictionary of a living tongue can be perfect, since 
while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, 
and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent 
upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would 
not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever 
language can express, must often speak of what he does not 
understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eager- 
ness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a 
task which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and 
the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what 
is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inad- 
vertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce 
attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learn- 
ing; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory 
at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew 
with instinctive readiness, and which will come uncalled into 
his thoughts to-morrow. 

. . . Though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to 
the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence 
proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may 
gratify curiosity to inform it that the English Dictionary 
was written with little assistance of the learned, and without 
any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of 
retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but 
amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sor- 
row: and it may repress the triumph of malignant criticism 
to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, 
I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have 
hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now 
immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, 
after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if 
the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the 
Italian academicians, did not secure them from the censure 
of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years 
had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its 
economy, and give their second edition another form, I may 
surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, 
if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what could it 
avail me? I have protracted my work until most of those 
whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success 



NOTES 57 

and miscarriage are empty sounds; I therefore dismiss it 

with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from 
censure or from praise. ' ' 



22, 25— Home Tooke. The assumed name of the Eev. 
John Home (1736-1812), an able and active politician and 
philologist who in his time measured strength with Junius 
and Wilkes, opposed the American war, and wrote tracts on 
both politics and philology. 

23, 5— Junius and Skinner. Franziscus Junius (1589- 
1677), a German student who died in England, leaving as 
the chief monument of his labors an ' ' Etymologicum Angli- 
canum." Stephen Skinner (1623-1667), a graduate of 
Christ Church, Oxford, published an etymological dictionary 
of the English language in 1671. 

23, 12— spunging houses. Or sponging houses. Johnson's 
own definition will be sufficient, — "Spunging house, a house 
to which debtors are taken before commitment to prison, 
where the bailiffs sponge upon them, or riot at their cost. " 

24, 11— Miss Lydia Languish. A fantastically senti- 
mental girl in Sheridan's comedy "The Rivals." 

25, 7— Bruce's "Travels." James Bruce (1730-1794), a 
native of Kinnaird, Scotland, and probably the most cele- 
brated African traveler before Livingstone, published his 
"Travels to discover the sources of the Nile" in 1790. The 
incident of the "raw steak cut from living cows" is related 
by him in good faith. 

25, 11— Mrs. Lennox. Charlotte Lennox (1720-1804), an 
English novelist and poet, who was a respected friend of 
Johnson 's. She was born in New York, where her father, 
Colonel James Eamsay, was lieutenant governor. 

25, 12— Mrs. Sheridan. Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan 
(1724-1766), the accomplished mother of Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan, herself a novelist and dramatist. 

25, 25— Hector . . . Aristotle. See "Troilus and Cres- 
sida, ' ' Act n, Sc. ii. The period traditionally assigned to the 
Trojan War, in which Hector was the chief bulwark of the 
besieged city of Troy, is the early part of the twelfth cen- 
tury B.C. Aristotle flourished in the fourth century,— making 



58 NOTES 

Hector's reference to him an anachronism of about eight 
centuries.— Julio Romano . . . Delphi. Julio Romano was 
an Italian painter (1492-1546), pupil of Raphael. . The oracle 
of Apollo at Delphi was definitely closed by the emperor 
Theodosius at the end of the fourth century of our era. Yet 
in "A Winter's Tale" the oracle's judgment is sought 
(Act II, Sc. i), and the pretended statue of Hermione (Act v,. 
Sc. ii) is the work of that "rare Italian master, Julio 
Romano. ' ' 

25, 33— massy. Formerly in common use; now rhetorical 
or archaic: in ordinary prose use superseded by "massive"' 
("Oxford English Dictionary"). 

26, 2— Lord Privy Seal. The minister who has the cus- 
tody of the seal affixed to documents of minor importance,, 
not requiring the Great Seal. Lord Gower is referred to in 
the text. ' ' You know, Sir, ' ' said Johnson once to Boswell,. 
"Lord Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest. When I 
came to the word renegado, after telling that it meant 'one 
who deserts to the enemy, a revolter, ' I added, Sometimes we 
say a GOWER. Thus it went to the press; but the printer 
had more wit than I, and struck it out. ' ' 

26, 9— George the Third. George III became king in 1760. 
James II had been deposed seventy-two years before. Many 
still thought that deposition wrongful. But the two Jacobite 
revolts of 1715 and 1745 had both met with utter failure. 
England was evidently committed to the principles of the 
Revolution and to the rule of the House of Hanover. George 
I and George II had been more German than English; 
George III was English by birth, education, and tempera- 
ment. On all these counts the Tories wisely decided to for- 
get their Jacobite principles and to renew their traditional 
support of the crown and its prerogatives. George himself 
was a Tory at heart, suspicious of Parliament and hostile to 
the great Whig leaders, who might be proud and undemo- 
cratic, but who nevertheless represented the principle of Par- 
liamentary supremacy. Accordingly "(Tory) Oxford be- 
came loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks (two of the greatest 
of the Whig families) were murmuring. (Tory) Somersets 
and Wyndhams hastened to kiss hands. ' ' And Johnson, a 
Tory man of letters, could accept from friends what he 



NOTES 59 

would have despised coming from a Whig government. His 
action was inconsistent, but very human. 

26, 15— Lord Bute. John Stuart, third Earl of Bute (1713- 
1792), Secretary of State and Prime Minister. He was on the 
whole unpopular. 

27, 27— Cock Lane Ghost. See note on 11, 1 of the Essay 
on Addison.— Churchill (1731-1764). A dissipated and 
worthless but keen-minded wit, whose most notable piece of 
work was ' ' The Eosciad, ' ' a biting satire on the actors of 
his day, in which Garrick alone escaped ridicule. 

28, 4— Wilhelm Meister. "Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice- 
ship" was a novel published by Goethe 1795-6. 

28, 23— Ben. Ben Jonson (1574-1637), after Shakespeare 
the greatest dramatist of the Elizabethan age. 

28, 31, 32— .ffischylus, Euripides, Sophocles. The three 
great tragic poets of ancient Greece. In order of time 
^Eschylus was the eldest (born about 525 B.C.), and Euri- 
pides the youngest (born 485 B.C.). To edit the works of 
Sophocles (born about 495 B.C.) without a knowledge of 
iEschylus or Euripides would be to neglect the setting of the 
poet studied, and the evolution of his genius and method. 
The parallel is not perfect, but it is sufficiently so. The 
greatest of Shakespeare's older contemporaries was Christo- 
pher Marlowe; of those who were younger or who followed 
him Ben Jonson was easily first, and then would come, proba- 
bly, Webster, Beaumont, and Fletcher. Of the other great 
dramatists mentioned in 1. 35, Dekker began to write in 1598 
and died about 1637— twenty-one years after Shakespeare,— 
while Ford and Massinger were three or four years younger. 

30, 19— Goldsmith. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), the 
lovable Irishman who, perhaps, of the whole group is most 
read to-day. His best known works are ' ' The Deserted Vil- 
lage, " " The Traveller, ' ' and the exquisite novel, ' ' The 
Vicar of Wakefield. ' ' 

30, 20— Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), first 
president of the Royal' Academy, is the chief of the three 
great English painters of his age,— Reynolds, Romney, and 
Gainsborough. 

30, 21— Burke. Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the greatest 
orator of the philosophic type that the British races (he was 



60 NOTES 

an Irishman) have yet produced, and one of the greatest 
masters of political philosophy. The works by which he is 
best known are his "Reflections on the Revolution in 
France, ' ' " Thoughts on the Present Discontents, ' ' and his 
speeches on America. 

30, 22— Gibbon. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of 
"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "—Jones. 
Sir William Jones (1746-1794), a distinguished English 
Orientalist. He was the first English scholar to recognize 
the value of Sanskrit. 

30, 29— Bennet Langton (1737-1801). Fellow student at 
Trinity College, Oxford, with Topham Beauclerk (see below). 
He was famous for his Greek scholarship, but is best known 
by his friendship with Dr. Johnson, whom he attended in his 
last illness. 

30, 31— Topham Beauclerk (1737-1780). A country gen- 
tleman of catholic taste in science and literature, whose 
friendship for Dr. Johnson has preserved his memory. 

31, 8— Boswell. James Boswell (1740-1795). Compare 
the estimates of Boswell in this essay and in Macaulay's 
essay on Boswell 's "Life of Johnson" with that of Carlyle 
in his essay on Johnson. 

31, 22— Wilkes. John Wilkes (1727-1797), the great 
English agitator who, though himself unprincipled and quite 
lacking in constructive statesmanship, stood out successfully 
against Parliament for liberty of the press and freedom of 
election. 

31, 24— Whitfield . . . Calvinistic Methodists. George 
Whitfield (1714-1770), one of Wesley's associates in the 
founding of Methodism at Oxford (between 1729 and 1735), 
and the greatest pulpit orator of the movement. He was a 
rigid Calvinist, and on this ground separated from Wesley 
in 1741. 

33, 1— Southwark . . . Streatham. Southwark is a district 
on the "Surrey side" of the Thames in London. Its largest 
industrial establishment is still the great brewery once owned 
by Mr. Thrale. Streatham is a suburb on the south side of 
London. 

33, 27— Buck . . . Maccaroni. "Buck" was a half -slang 
eighteenth-century term for a fashionable dandy,— equivalent 



NOTES 61 

to ' ' beau. ' ' Macearoni, really the name of an Italian dish, 
was still another term for ' ' dandy, ' ' perhaps because the 
Italian tour was the fashion among young men of wealth, and 
the use of a word of this kind would carry with it an affecta- 
tion of familiarity with things Italian. 

33, 33— Fleet St. The street which leads from Temple 
Bar eastward, and which has always been considered the 
chief approach to the City of London. It took its name from 
the Fleet river, arched over and turned into a sewer in 1765. 

34, 22— Mitre Tavern. In Mitre Court, off Fleet Street. 
While it stood it was noted as Dr. Johnson's favorite resort, 
but it has now been torn down. 

35, 33 — Lothian. A name whose origin is unknown, now 
preserved in the three Scotch counties of East, West, and 
Mid Lothian — Haddington, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh. 

35, 35— Mansfield. William Murray, Lord Mansfield 
(1705-1793), the most distinguished lawyer of his time, and 
chief justice of the Court of King's Bench, 1756-88. 

36, 11— Macpherson. James Macpherson (1736-1796) 
published in 1760 some fragments of ancient Gaelic verse 
with translations. These were received with so much interest 
that he followed them with "Fingal" — supposedly by the 
third century bard Ossian,— in 1762. Its authenticity was 
soon questioned but the forgery was never completely proved, 
and some still maintain the genuineness of the poem. Mac- 
pherson never produced the originals as evidence. 

36, 28 — sophistry. Gr. ooQiott/s , a master of one's craft. 
The method of teaching, doctrine, or practice of the Greek 
sophists, who attached great virtue to quibbles; hence rea- 
soning sound in appearance only ("Century Dictionary"). 

37, 4— Maxime, etc. "If thou wilt, greatly do I desire to 
contend with thee. ' ' 

37, 16— Bentley. Kichard Bentley (1662-1742), the great- 
est English scholar, and one of the greatest European scholars, 
of his time. 

37, 32— Almon and Stockdale. John Almon (1737-1805), 
bookseller and journalist. He had a shop in Piccadilly and 
afterwards in Fleet Street. John Stockdale (1749?-1814) began 
life as a porter to Almon, but on his retirement set up a 
book-shop in opposition to his successor. — ' 'Taxation no 



62 NOTES 

Tyranny." An answer to the Eesolutions and Address of 
the American Congress. Even Boswell could not admire this 
production. ' ' The extreme violence which it breathed ap- 
peared to me so unsuitable to the mildness of a Christian 
philosopher . . . that I was sorry to see him appear in so 
unfavorable a light. Besides, I could not perceive in it that 
ability of argument, or that felicity of expression, for which 
he was, upon other occasions, so eminent. Positive assertion, 
sarcastical assertion, and extravagant ridicule, which he him- 
self reprobated as a test of truth, were united .in this rhap- 
sody. ' ' 

38, 25— Wilson. Richard Wilson (1714-1782), a great 
English painter of landscapes, — a pupil of Claude. 

39, 7— wits of Button. See the Essay on Addison, pages 
43-46. Button 's coffee house, kept by an old servant of Addi- 
son 's, was the favorite meeting place of Addison, Steele, Tick- 
ell, and their friends. Cibber. Colley Gibber (1671-1757). 
An English actor and dramatist, poet-laureate in 1730. 

39, 9 — Orrery. Charles Boyle, fourth earl of Orrery 
(1676-1731), whose famous dispute with Bentley over the 
authenticity of the "Epistles of Phalaris" led to Swift's 
production of the ' ' Battle of the Books. ' ' 

39, 10, 11 — Savage . . . services to Pope. Savage (see 
pages 15-16) was said to have hunted up and supplied to 
Pope small personal details that would add point to his sa- 
tires. Johnson accuses him ' ' of supplying Pope with private 
intelligence and secret incidents, so that the ignominy of an 
informer was added to the terror of a satirist." 

40, 15— Malone. Edward Malone (1741-1812), an Irish 
literary critic and Shakespearian scholar. 

41, 23— music master from Brescia. Gabriel Piozzi, an 
Italian music master of much talent. Mrs. Thrale was mar- 
ried to him in 1784, and he died in 1809, leaving the modest 
fortune which he had accumulated to his wife. Her affection 
for him was warm and permanent, and is her most amiable 
trait. 

41, 38— solemn and tender prayer. This is thus reported 
by Boswell: — 



NOTES 63 

"Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by thy grace, 
that I ma} r , with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember 
the comforts and conveniences which I have enjoyed at this 
place; and that I may resign them with holy submission, 
equally, trusting in thy protection when thou givest and when 
thou takest away. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, have mercy 
upon me. 

' ' To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. 
Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may so pass through 
this world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting 
happiness, for Jesus Christ 's sake. Amen. ' ' 

42, 18— Ephesian matron. An allusion to a story told in 
the third satire of Petronius and summarized by Jeremy Tay- 
lor in ' ' Holy Dying, ' ' chapter v. The woman in the tale 
was so overcome with grief at the death of her husband that 
she insisted on going to the vault with his body, intending to 
die there. A soldier on guard near-by came in, offered her 
sympathy and wine, and before long, her exhausted frame 
and lonely heart finding solace in his company, she fell in 
love and married him before a single day had passed since 
her first husband's funeral. — Two pictures in Hamlet. See 
' ' Hamlet, ' ' Act ill, Sc. iv. 

43, 14— Windham. William Windham (1750-1810), Sec- 
retary for War in Grenville 's ministry. 

43, 16— Frances Burney. Afterwards Madame D'Arblay 
(1752-1840), author of two well-known novels of that day, 
"Evelina" and "Cecilia." See Macaulay's essay on 
Madame D 'Arblay. 



INDEX TO NOTES 



References are to pages of the notes: notes to "Addison" are indicated by i, 
those to "Johnson"' by II. 



Abgarus, I, 94 
yEneid, I, 98, 100 
/Eschylus, II, 59 
Aikin, Lucy, I, 91, 95 
Akenside, Mark, i, 107 
Alfieri, Vittorio, i, 106 
Almon, John, II, (51 
Anne, Queen, n, 45 
Ariosto, I, 91 
Aristotle, II, 57 
Arnold, Matthew, II, 45 
Asdrubal, I, 99 
Athanasius, I, 95 
Attic poetry, H. 46 
Augustan age, II, 46 
Ausonius, I, 93 

Balisarda, I, 91 
Beaumont, Francis, n, 59 
"Beggars' Opera," n, 48 
Bentlev, Richard, II, 61 
Bettesworth, I, 103 
Blues of the circus, II, 4 9 
Bluster, Squire, II, 53 
Boccaccio, I, 100 
bohea, I, 104 
Boileau, I, 95, 96 
Bolingbroke, Viscount, I, 105 
Boswell, James, n, 45, 51, 54, 60, 

62 
Bourne, Vincent, I, 108 
Boyse, Samuel, n, 51 
Bramante, I, 97 
Browning, Robert, I, 108 
Bruce, James, n, 57 
"Buck," II, 60 
Burke, Edmund, II, 59 
Burnev, Prances, II, 63 
Bute, Earl of, II, 59 
Butler, Samuel, I, 102 
Button's, I, 92; II, 62 
Byron, Lord, I, 107 

Cambridge, T, 94 ; II, 46 

Capreae, I, 9 7 

Capuchin friars, I, 96 

Capulets, II, 49 

Carev, Henry, I, 101 

Carlyle, Thomas, i, 102 ; n, 60 



Charles I, I, 95 ; II, 49, 50 
Charles II, I, 92 ; II, 46, 50 
Charter House, I, 92 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, I, 108 
Chesterfield, Lord, n, 54 
"Chevy Chace," I, 104 
Child's coffee-house, I, 104 
Christ Church College, II, 46 
Gibber, Colley, II, 62 
Clarendon, Earl of, II, 50 
Claudian, I, 93 

Cock Lane ghost, n, 59 ; I, 93 
Collier, Jeremy, I, 103 
commination service, I, 102 
Congreve, William, I, 107, 108 
Convocation, I, 92 
Corneille, Pierre, I, 106 
Covent Garden, I, 101; II, 52 
Cowley, Abraham, I, 102 
Coyer, Abbe, I, 103 
"Critical Review," n, 54 
Cromwell, Oliver, I, 92, 95 
Cynics, I, 103 

Dacier, I, 95 
Dante Alighieri, I, 100 
Davy, Sir Humphrey, I, 107 
Dekker, Thomas, ir, 59 
Dickens, Charles, I. 102 
Dodington, Bubb, II, 53 
Doria, I, 96 
Dunkirk, I, 92 

"Edinburgh Review," I, 91 
Edward III, I, 101 
Ephesian matron, n, 63 
Erasmus, I, 96 
Euripides, II, 59: t, 9.T 
Eusebius, I, 94 

Ferdinand and Isabella, T, 98 
Fleet Street, II, 61 
Fletcher, John, II, 59 
Ford, John, n, 59 
Francis, St., of Assisi, I, 96 
Fracastorius, I, 96 

Gainsborough, Thomas, II, 59 
Garrick, David, II, 47 



66 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Gay, John, I, 108; II, 48 
"Gentleman's Magazine," ir, 48 
George I, I, 107 ; II, 51 
George II, II, 51 
George III, II, 58 
"Gerano-Pygniaeornachia," I, 96 
Gibbon, Edward, II, 60 
Gladstone, Wm. Ewart, II, 46 
Godolphin, Earl of, I, 104 
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, II, 59 
Goldsmith, Oliver, I, 108; II, 59 
Gothic architecture, I, 96 
Gowei", Lord, II, 58 
Grand Alliance, I, 98 
Grecian coffee-house, I, 102 
Grenville, George, II, 63 
Gummere, Francis B., II, 53 
Gunnings. The, II, 53 
Gwynn, Nell, I, 107 

Hale, I, 103 

Hallam, Henry, i, 107 

Hampden, .John, II, 50 

Hampton Court, I, 92 

Hannibal, I, 100 

Harleian Library, II, 48 

Harlev, Robert, Earl of Oxford, 

I, 106; II, 48 
Hartley, David, II, 53 
Hector, II, 57 
Henry VIII, I, 92 
Herculaneum, I, 97 
Hobbes, Thomas, I, 95 
Homer, I, 98 

Hoole, John, i. 94: ir, 51 
Horace, II, 46 
Hurd, Richard, I, 101 

Ireland, Wm. Henry, I, 94 
Irving, Washington, I, 107 

Jacobite, II, 45 
James II, i, 95, 98; II, 45 
Jenyns, Soame, I, 103 
Jerusalem Chamber, I, 108 
"Johnson," Boswell's, II, 45 
Jonson, Ben, I, 108; II, 59 
Julio Romano, II, 58 
Junius, Franziscus, II, 57 
Juvenal, II, 51, 52 

King, Edward, I, 108 
King's evil, II, 46 
Kit-Kat Club, I, 95 
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, I, 102 

Langton, Bennett, II, 60 
Languish, Lydia. n, 57 
Lanier. Sidney, II, 53 
Laud, Archbishop, II, 49 
Lennox, Charlotte, II, 57 
Lepels, II, 47 



"Leviathan," I, 95 

Lichfield, II, 45 

Lilliput, II, 49 

Livingstone, David, II, 57 

Livy, I, 96 

Lizards, Miss, I, 105 

"London Magazine," II, 48 

Longus, I, 108 

Lord Privy Seal, II, 58 

Lorenzo the Magnificent, ir, 47 

Lothian, II, 61 

Louis XIV, I, 95, 98 

Lucan, I, 93 

Lucian of Samosata, T, 104 

Lucretius, I, 92 

Lycidas, I, 108 

"Maccaroni," II, 60 
Machinae Gesticulantes, I, 96 
Macpherson, James, II, 61 
Macrobius, II, 46 
Malbranche, Nicholas de, I, 95 
Malone, Edmund, II, 62 
Mamelukes, I, 99 
Manchester, Lady, I, 95 
Manilius, I, 93 
Mansfield, Lord, II, 61 
Marcus Aurelius, I, 100 
Marlborough, Duke of, I, 99, 105 
Marlowe, Christopher, n, 59 
Martial, I, 100 
Massingei-, Philip, II, 59 
Menander, I, 102 
Mephistopheles, I, 103 
"Messiah," II, 47 
Michelangelo, I, 97, 100 
Milton, John, I. 108 
Misenum, I, 98 
Mitre Tavern, II, 61 
Mohawks, I, 104 

Montague, Lady Mary, II, 53, 54 
Montagues, II, 49 
Mont Cenis, I, 99 
"Monthly Review," II, 54 
Morley, H., I. 105 

Nambv Pamby, I, 101 

Naples, I, 97, 98 

Napoleon, I, 99 

Nemesis, I, 101 

Nero, I, 99 

Newgate, II, 52 

Newton, Sir Isaac, I, 108 

"Orlando Furioso," I, 91 
Orrery, Earl of, II, 62 
Ovid, I, 93 

Oxford, I, 92. 94, 105; II, 46, 49, 
60 

Paestum, I, 97 
Pantheon, I, 97 



INDEX TO NOTES 



67 



Parliamentary reporting, ir, 48 

Pembroke College, II, 46 

Pentheus, I, 93 

Percy, Bishop, I, 104 

Peripetia, I, 106 

Petrarch, II, 46 

Phillipps, Ambrose, r, 104 

Piozzi, Gabriel, II, 62 

Politian, II, 47 

Pollio, I, 96 

Pompeii, I, 97 

Pompignan, Franc de, I, 103 

Poole, John, I, 102 

Pope, Alexander, ir, 47, 62 

Posilipo, I, 97 

Prince Frederick, II, 53 

Prndentius, I, 92 

Psalmanazar, ir, 51 

Puck, I, 103 

Queensberrys, II, 47 

Racine, Jean, I, 95, 106 
Ramsay, Colonel James, II, 57 
"Rasselas," I, 95 
Ravenna, I, 100 
Revolution, English, I, 95 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, II, 59 
Rimini, Francesca da, I, 100 
Romney, George, II, 59 
Rosicrucian, I, 107 
Rowe, Nicholas, I, 107 
royal touch, n, 45, 46 
Riiskin, John, II, 46 

St. James's Square, n, 52 

St. Peter's, I, 97 

Sacheverell, Henry, I, 103 ; II, 49 

Salvator Rosa, i, 97 

Sannazaro, Jacopo, I, 96 

Santa Croce, I, 100 

Savage, Richard, I, 102 ; II, 62 

Scherezade, I, 104 

scrofula, II, 46 

Sejanus, II, 52 

Sempronius, I, 105 

Septennial Parliaments, II, 50 

Shakespeare, William, i, 108; II, 

59, 62 
Sheridan, Mrs., II, 57 
Sheridan, Richard B., I, 107, 108: 

II, 57 
Sidney, Sir Philip, i, 108 
Sidowius Apollinaris, I, 100 
Skinner, Stephen, ir, 57 
Softly, Tom, I, 101 
Sophocles, il, 59 
Southwark, n, 60 
"Spectator," n, 53 
Spring Gardens, I, 104 
spunging houses, II, 57 



de Stael, Madame, I, 10 7 

Steele, Richard, I, 102; n, 62 

Steenkirk, i, 91 

Stella, i, 101 

stock-jobbers, II, 50 

Stockdale, John, II, 61 

Strafford, Earl of, II, 49 

Streatham, n, 60 

Surface, i, 107 

Swift, Jonathan, I, 101, 106 

Talleyrand, I, 107 

Tasso, Torquato, I, 94, 100, 107 

II, 51 
"Tatler, The," ir, 53 
Taylor, Jeremy, II, 63 
"Taxation no Tyranny," n, 61 
Teazle, Sir Peter, i, i07 
Tempest, Tom, II, 49 
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, I, 108 
Theobald's, I, 91 
Theocritus, I, 93 
Thomson, James, n, 47 
Thrale, n, 60 
Thrale, Mrs. Hester, II, 62 
Ticino, I, 100 

Tickell, Thomas, I, 102; n, 62 
Tooke, Home, II, 57 
Treaty of Ryswick, I, 98 
Trevelyan, Lady, n, 45 

Valerius Flaccus, l, 100 

Vanbrugh, Sir John, I, 103 

Versailles, I, 103, 104 

Vico, I, 97 

Victor Amadeus, I, 100 

Vida, I, 96 

Virgil, i, 102: II, 46, 47 

Voltaire, i, 103 

"Vortigern," Ireland's, I, 94 

Walcheren. i, 104 
Wallace, Lew, n, 47 
Walpole, Sir Robert, II, 52 
Warburton, William, I, 101 
Webster, John, II, 59 
Wellington, Duke of, II, 46 
Wesley, John, II, 60 
Western, Squire, I, 107 
Whitfield, George, II, 60 
Wild of Sussex, I, 92 
Wilkes, John, II, 60 
William III. I, 95; II, 46 
William and Marv, II, 45 
Will's coffee-house, I, 102 
Wilson, Richard, II, 62 
Windham, William, II, 63 
Wolsey, Cardinal, II, 52 

Young, Edward, II, 53 
















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